Italy and Iran diplomatic tangle escalates over detained citizens

Rome, Jan. 4: Italy summoned Iran’s ambassador on Thursday to demand the release of an Italian journalist while Tehran demanded Italy free an Iranian citizen arrested on a U.S. warrant over a drone attack in Jordan that killed three Americans a year ago.

The developments reflected an escalation in a sensitive, three-nation diplomatic tangle marked by a series of public barbs.

The complicated saga began on Dec. 16, when the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against two Iranian citizens accused of supplying the drone technology to Iran that was used in a January 2024 attack on a U.S.  

outpost in Jordan that killed three American troops.

One of the suspects, Mohammad Abedini, was detained that day at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant seeking his extradition. Three days later, an Italian reporter for the Il Foglio daily, Cecilia Sala, was detained in Tehran. She had arrived in the country on Dec. 13 on a journalist visa and was arrested on charges of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the state-run IRNA news agency said.

 The Iranian Embassy to Italy described the meeting between Ambassador Mohammadreza Sabouri and the Italian foreign ministry’s secretary general, Riccardo Guariglia, as friendly. (AP)