ROME — Tehran police detained Italian journalist Cecilia Sala during a reporting assignment on Dec. 19, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. 

 Sala, 29, contributes to Il Foglio and hosts Stories, one of Italy's ten most popular podcasts. She has spent the last week in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, Iran's primary detention center for political prisoners. 

 Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Iran had not yet released an explanation for Sala's arrest. She had traveled Tehran on Dec. 12. 

 "I have returned to Iran, the place I have missed the most, where the people whom I miss the most live, a place where access for journalists can be complicated" Sala said at the start of the first of three Stories episodes she produced from Iran's capital. 

 Set to return to Rome on Dec. 20, she stopped responding to messages the day before. 

 Italy is "trying to solve an issue that's complicated," Minister Tajani said in a statement. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni urged media to treat the story of Sala's detention with "necessary caution."

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