MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Russia expects Iran to grant its earlier request for consular access to detained Russian citizen Yulia Yuzik soon, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"We have requested consular access and assume that it should be granted in the near future," she told the Evening with Vladimir Solovyev talk show on Russia’s Channel One.

According to Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry maintains contact with the family of the detained woman, the consul in Tehran is in touch with Yuzik’s mother.

"The Iranian ambassador to Moscow was summoned, our deputy foreign minister had a conversation with him. This was very serious. We received the Iranian side’s assurances that this matter would be solved in the near future," she said. "I can assure you that everything is being done [to solve the issue]."

Yuzik was arrested on October 2 in a Tehran hotel where she had been staying. The Russian embassy explained that the Russian did not notify the diplomatic mission on the difficulties linked to the confiscation of her passport at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Yuzik worked as a reporter in the Rostov office of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and the Russky Newsweek magazine. She has been doing literary work and journalist investigations since 2003. In 2003, Yuzik released the book "Brides of Allah," which was published in nine countries. Then she wrote "Beslan Dictionary.".