By Joseph Berger

Source:

September 19, 2010

One of the three American hikers held in for 13 months on spying charges arrived in the United States on Sunday as Iranian President said that the United States, as “a humanitarian gesture,” should now release eight Iranians whom he said were illegally arrested.

The released hiker, , 32, along with her mother, Nora, and an uncle, arrived at dawn at Dulles International Airport near Washington. A statement released by her family to The Associated Press said they were on their way to New York to hold a press conference with the mothers of the two still-held American hikers.

The three were trekking in the mountainous Kurdish area of northern Iraq in the summer of 2009 when they were arrested by Iranian border guards on charges of wandering into Iranian territory. They were soon accused of espionage, a charge dismissed by American officials as absurd. Ms. Shourd’s two companions — her fiancé, , and Joshua F. Fatall, both 28 — remain under arrest on what Iranian officials call a “pretrial detention” that has been extended for two months.

In an interview broadcast Sunday morning with on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said that the Iranian government “took a humanitarian measure and released one of the three individuals who entered our borders,” so “I believe it would not be misplaced to ask that the U.S. government should make a humanitarian gesture and release the Iranians who were illegally arrested and detained here in the United States.”

When Ms. Amanpour suggested that he was holding the two remaining hikers as hostages for eight Iranians held for various crimes, including violating international sanctions against Iran, the Iranian president replied: “How would you know those Iranians are criminals? Are you a judge?”

“We want people to be free and not to suffer,” he added, “but at the end of the day there’s a law that determines who stays in prison and who does not.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad also commented on another case that has become something of a cause celebre, the sentence to death by stoning of , a woman convicted of adultery in 2006 and accused in recent weeks of playing a role in murdering her husband. The sentence, which provoked an international outcry, was halted almost two weeks ago.

Mr. Ahmadinejad contended that the woman was never sentenced to stoning and that her case was “news that was made up” as propaganda by American politicians and the media. He also wondered why the case of “one lady in a village in Iran should suddenly become such a big issue for American officials.”

“The propaganda behind it was big, and then those same murderers of people become supporters of human rights,” he said sardonically.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was in New York to attend the annual of the this week. The United States has led an international effort to place sanctions on Iran for its unwillingness to cooperate with international inspections of its uranium enrichment program. The United States believes that enrichment is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

In a separate interview with Ms. Amanpour, Secretary of State said from Jerusalem that the economic and financial sanctions against Iran were “biting” and that their impact was corroborated by many reports from the region. Mr. Ahmadinejad dismissed the sanctions as “pathetic.”

“The information we’re getting is that the Iranian regime is quite worried about the impact on their banking system, on their economic growth, because they’ve already encountered tough economic times, and this is making it more costly,” Ms. Clinton said.

She said that she would like to see Iran return to negotiations with a forum that includes the United States, Britain, France, Russia China and Germany to discuss its nuclear ambitions. Mr. Ahmadinejad said his country had “always been ready to discuss issues as long as they’re within the legal framework and based on principles of justice and respect.”

Ms. Clinton also said that the United States is concerned about the “increasing power exercised by the military” and the in Iranian political life. While the Iranian revolution promised Iran would be a republic, elected officials now increasingly “turn to the military to enforce their power,” she said.

“I can only hope that that there will be some effort inside Iran by responsible civil and religious leaders to take hold of the apparatus of the state,” she said.