TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that two American men arrested near Iran's border with Iraq and sentenced for espionage will soon be released in a humanitarian gesture.
"I think these two persons will be freed in a couple of days. Yes, in a couple of days. Inshallah (God willing), they will be freed," he said through an interpreter in an interview broadcast on NBC's "Today" show.
"These two persons will be released. It's going to be over. We do it, for example, in a humanitarian gesture," he added.
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were sentenced in Iran last month to eight years in prison following their July 2009 arrest along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was freed on $500,000 bail in September 2010 and returned home.
Bauer and Fattal were convicted last month and share a cell in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
The three say they were hiking in the mountains along Iraq's border with Iran.
The men's lawyer said an Iranian court has ordered their release on bail, adding that they would be allowed to leave the Islamic state right after their release.
"The appeals court has agreed for the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal on $500,000 bail for each of them ... They can leave Iran right after their release," Masoud Shafie told Reuters.
"I just left the court a few minutes ago and informed the Swiss embassy about the recent development."
The Swiss embassy in Tehran looks after the interests of the United States, which broke off diplomatic ties with Iran shortly after its 1979 Islamic revolution.
The announcement, ahead of Ahmadinejad's trip to New York to participate at the U.N. General Assembly meeting on September 22, was seen by analysts as a move to ease the mounting diplomatic pressure on Iran.
"Ahmadinejad secured the release to gain popularity in America and also to evade political pressure," said analyst Reza Fakuri.
The affair has heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, which are also at odds over Iran's disputed nuclear work.
Ahmadinejad said the case of the two men was part of a larger issue including Iranians imprisoned in the United States.
"These two people are having a very good condition here in prison. It's like staying in a hotel. I think the problem is in the approach of the American politicians and leaders, why the American leaders are so hostile against us," he said.
"Let me ask a question: are they really the problem? You know how many Iranians are now in the American jails? They're all human beings. It's not about only two people in Iran."
President Barack Obama has denied that the Americans, who were working in the Middle East when they decided to hike in the scenic mountains of Iraq, had any link to U.S. intelligence.
Bauer, Fattal and Shourd say they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and, if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran, it was by mistake.
Their supporters say evidence against them has never been made public, and that the sentence came as a shock after hopes for their release had been boosted by positive comments from Iran's foreign minister.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington; Editing by Jon Boyle and Eric Beech)
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