Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister
Antonio Tajani on Thursday denied a report published by Milan
daily Corriere della Sera claiming US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken had protested against the release on Sunday by Italian
authorities of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, an Iranian engineer
arrested on December 16 at Milan's Malpensa airport on a US
warrant.
Blinken's alleged protest "is a totally unfounded report", said
Tajani.
"I spoke with Blinken during the Quintet meeting ahead of the
mission in Syria and Lebanon" last Friday, said the foreign
minister, referring to meeting of the so-called Quintet - United
States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy - also
attended by the European Union's High Representative for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas.
Tajani went on to say that allegations of "interventions by
private parties" in the case, already denied by them, "are
groundless, calling such reports "fantasy reconstructions more
worthy of a novel than a newspaper report".
Iran has denied a New York Times report that Elon Musk helped
secure the release of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala by
contacting Iran's ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeed Iravani.
According to the Isna news agency, Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Esmail Baghaei described the report as "a media
fabrication and a fantasy".
Sala, 29, a freelance reporter for Il Foglio newspaper and a
podcaster at Chora News, returned to Italy last week after being
released by Iran following her arrest in Tehran on December 19.
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