TEHRAN — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that he intends to release two Americans who have been jailed on charges of espionage for two years and grant them a “unilateral pardon.”

“I am helping to arrange for their release in a couple of days so they will be able to return home,” Ahmadinejad told The Washington Post in an hour-long interview at his office here.

The Americans, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, were arrested along with another American, Sarah Shourd, as they hiked along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009. Last month, Bauer and Fattal were sentenced to eight years in prison.

Shourd was released in September 2010 on medical and humanitarian grounds after posting $500,000 bail.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was “encouraged” by Ahmadinejad’s comments. There was no immediate reaction from the families of Bauer or Fattal.

The promise to free the hikers could eliminate a key flash point in relations between Iran and the United States, although many more remain. It comes just weeks before Ahmadinejad is due to visit New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, and it coincides with other conciliatory actions by Iran, including a letter to European Union officials offering new talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

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  9:22 am  |   September 14 2011   |  5 notes