Italy's foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador on Thursday to demand the immediate release of reporter Cecilia Sala, who was seized in Tehran on Dec. 19 while working under a regular journalistic visa.

Cecilia Sala, a reporter for the Il Foglio daily newspaper, was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, six days after she arrived on a journalist's visa.

The summons came a day after a similar move by Italy over Iran's arrest of Italian reporter Cecilia Sala, who was seized in Tehran on December 19 while working under a journalist visa

The Italian government has summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the detention of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Tehran, calling for her immediate release, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said on Thursday.

Complicating matters are indications that Sala's fate has become intertwined with that of an Iranian man who was detained in Italy on 16 December, just three days before her arrest in Tehran. #EuropeN

The fate of an Italian journalist detained in Tehran and an Iranian engineer imprisoned in Italy on a U.S. warrant grew even more intertwined Friday as the Iranian awaits possible extradition to the United States to face charges he provided drone technology to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard corps.

Iran warned Italy on Friday that it risked harming good bilateral relations if it bows to the "political and hostile goals" of the United States by detaining an Iranian engineer on a U.S. warrant in connection with a drone attack in Jordan last year that killed three American troops.