The foreign ministry denied on Thursday that it was not doing enough for an aid worker imprisoned by Afghan security forces after helping to free an Italian journalist held hostage by the Taliban.
"The Italian government remains focused on the case of Rahmatullah Hanefi. Our contacts cannot always be publicly proclaimed... but things are starting to happen," ministry spokesman Pasquale Ferrara said at a weekly news briefing.
Hanefi works for Italian international aid organisation Emergency, which runs a number of hospitals and other medical aid facilities in Afghanistan.
He was arrested after helping to mediate the release last month of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was kidnapped by the Taliban near the southern city of Lashkar Gah on March 5.
Mastrogiacomo was released two weeks later in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government but his interpreter, Adjmal Nashkbandi is still in Taliban hands while his driver, Sayed Agha, was beheaded by his captors.
Hanefi, who is the head of personnel at Emergency's hospital in Lashkar Gah, played an important role in the negotiations for Mastrogiacomo and was taken away by Afghan security officials immediately after the Italian's release.
He is currently in a government prison in the Afghan capital of Kabul but his family, Emergency staff and lawyers have been denied access to him.
Ferrara said Italy's ambassador to Kabul was following the case and that Red Cross officials had seen Hanefi.
According to Afghan staff at the prison where Hanefi was first taken, the Emergency worker had been tortured.
But Ferrara said that, from what it had been told by the Red Cross, there was "no immediate cause for concern over the conditions and treatment of Hanefi".
Emergency founder Gino Strada threatened this week to quit Afghanistan unless Hanefi was released and accused the Italian government of not doing enough for the Afghan.
"It doesn't make sense for Emergency to remain in a country where our staff can be arrested," said Strada, whose organisation runs three hospitals and 30 other facilities in Afghanistan.
Ferrara stressed on Thursday that Emergency played an "essential role" in Afghanistan and elsewhere and that this was appreciated by local populations and governments alike.
Emergency began working in Afghanistan in 1999 and since then has treated more than 1.5 million people.
It also helped last year in the release of Italian photo-journalist Gabriele Torsello after three weeks' captivity in Helmand, the same area of Afghanistan where Mastrogiacomo was abducted.
Strada stressed recently that his organisation played a key humanitarian and social role in the country and that this, together with it neutral status, gave it contacts and channels that were usually denied official representatives in hostage negotiation processes.
FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS DOING ITS BEST FOR INTERPRETER.
Ferrara also said on Thursday that Italy was doing everything possible to help Mastrogiacomo's interpreter.
He said he could not give further details because of the "delicacy of the case".
Top Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah has said he is holding Nashkbandi and will release him in exchange for more Taliban prisoners.
Appeals have been mounting for the release of both Hanefi and Nashkbandi and on Saturday, thousands of Italians rallied in the centre of Rome to demand their release.
The Italian government came under fire at home and abroad over the deal for Mastrogiacomo's release, with critics saying it would encourage foreign kidnappings and increase the risks for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is now believed to be holding two French aid workers and three Afghan guides who went missing in the southwest of Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Last week the Islamist militants seized five government health officials in the south and offered to free them in exchange for Taliban prisoners.
The Mastrogiacomo case also exacerbated tensions in the governing coalition over Italy's Afghan peacekeeping mission.
Italy has 1,900 troops in Afghanistan serving under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The kidnapping fuelled demands by pacifists in the governing alliance for an Italian pullout on the grounds that Afghanistan has become too dangerous for peacekeepers.
The journalist's release came just before a tricky Senate vote on continuing the Afghan mission.
Premier Romano Prodi, who holds only two more Senate seats than the Silvio Berlusconi-led opposition, won the ballot with 180 votes in favour, two against and 132 abstentions. Abstentions count as 'no' votes in the Senate.
