Iran says it will allow mothers of 3 jailed Americans to visit them in Tehran prison

Iran says mothers can visit 3 jailed Americans

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will allow the mothers of three Americans arrested along the Iraqi border in July to visit them in a Tehran prison, the foreign minister announced Monday, saying the decision was made on humanitarian grounds.

It was the first positive signal from Iran in a case that has exacerbated tensions between the two countries that were already high due to the standoff over Iran’s accelerating nuclear program and criticism of its crackdown on postelection protesters.

During their nine months in jail, Iran has accused the Americans of espionage but has not brought them to trial or even made clear if formal charges have been filed. In February, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed swapping them for Iranians he says are jailed in the U.S., raising fears that the three are being held as bargaining chips.

Adding to concerns, Swiss diplomats who were allowed to visit the Americans on April 22 reported that two of them were in poor health, according to their families.

Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said on state television late Monday that the Iranian government has ordered visas for the prisoners’ mothers to be issued on humanitarian grounds.

Iran has accused Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal of illegal border crossing, spying and having links to U.S. intelligence, and has said they would be brought to trial. Their families and the U.S. government have denied the spying accusations and called for their release.

The families of the three graduates of the University of California at Berkeley say they were hiking in the scenic Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and that if they did cross the border with Iran they did so unintentionally.

Mottaki said Iran made a decision to grant visas to the mothers before Ahmadinejad attended a conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in New York this month.

The mothers flew to New York in hopes of meeting Ahmadinejad to make a personal appeal for their children’s release, but their request to see him wasn’t granted.

“Before the New York meeting, we decided on humanitarian grounds that these three mothers can visit their children,” Mottaki said on a live television show. “We gave orders to our mission in the U.S. (to issue the visas). They can refer to our mission, get it (visas) and come.”

He did not clarify where the visas would be issued, but it could be at Iran’s U.N. mission in New York. The Pakistani Embassy in Washington also represents Iranian diplomatic interests in the U.S. in the absence of an official relationship between the two countries.

The three mothers said Monday they were excited to hear the news but did not want to count on making the trip until they got official word that they could pick up the visas.

“Yes we are excited, yes we are delighted at movement, delighted to think we will travel there,” said Laura Fattal of suburban Philadelphia, the mother of Josh Fattal. “But we haven’t got the word yet ourselves to come pick up those visas. We’re in a truly holding our breath situation. We will leave the minute we have those visas.”

Shane Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey of rural Pine City, Minnesota, said family members “have heard these rumblings before so we are being cautious with our optimism.” But, she said, “I have to say I’m more hopeful than I’ve ever been.”

“We’re dying to see the kids, obviously,” said Shourd’s mother, Nora Shourd, of Oakland, California.

A U.S. State Department official said the Iranian Foreign Ministry has told the Swiss Embassy in Tehran — which represents U.S. interests — that the visas will be approved but that it was not yet clear when the actual visit would be approved.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters later, “We have been seeking and supporting for some time efforts by the families of the three hikers to visit their loved ones in Tehran. We have communicated that to Iran. To our knowledge, they have not yet received visas.”

The only contact the families have had came in brief phone calls their children were allowed to make in March.

Last month, after the visit by Swiss diplomats, the mothers of Shourd and Bauer said the two were in poor health.

Shourd, who is being held alone in a cell, is suffering a serious gynecological condition and battling depression, while Bauer has a stomach ailment, their mothers said in April.

The Swiss diplomats reported that Bauer and Fattal were being held in the same cell. Shourd was allowed to see them once a day for a few minutes.

Bauer, a freelance journalist, had been hired to cover the Kurdish elections in Iraq, but his family said the hiking trip was a vacation. He and Shourd were dating and had been living in Damascus, Syria. She taught English and had written for various online publications. Fattal went to visit them after traveling overseas on a teaching fellowship.

Associated Press writers Patrick Condon in Minneapolis and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.