Mothers Can Visit U.S. Hikers in Iran

Iran's foreign minister is confirming that the mothers of three Americans arrested along the Iraqi border in July will be allowed to visit them in a Tehran prison.

Manouchehr Mottaki said on state television late Monday that the Iranian government has ordered its U.N. mission in New York to issue visas to the mothers.

Mottaki says Iran made the decision on humanitarian grounds. Iran has accused Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal of illegal border crossing, espionage and having links to U.S. intelligence. Their relatives and the U.S. government have denied the spying accusations and called for their release.

The families of the three University of California, Berkeley, graduates 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.

It was reported last month that two of the Americans jailed for nearly nine months are 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 told The Associated Press.

"I'm really alarmed," said Nora Shourd, who lives in Oakland, Calif. "I'm alarmed for Sarah's health. I think she needs immediate care."

Bauer and Fattal, who are both 27, and Shourd, 31, had been allowed no sympathetic visitors in months, though they were allowed to call their mothers in early March. The calls lasted about a minute.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appealed for their release. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he would do his best to free them, but noted that the U.S. was holding several Iranian citizens.

Bauer, a freelance journalist, had been hired to cover the Kurdish elections, but his family said the hiking trip was a vacation. He and Sarah Shourd were dating and had been living in Damascus, Syria. She taught English and had written for various online publications.

Josh Fattal went to visit them after traveling overseas on a teaching fellowship.