Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Iranian government is willing to release American prisoners they are holding, including Saeed Abedini, an Iran-born American Christian pastor who was detained in Iran in 2012, under the "right circumstances," a CNN report said.
Abedini is serving an eight-year jail term on charges of attempting to undermine the Iranian government.
Last week, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) disclosed that Abedini had told members of his family who visited him at the Rajai Shahr prison that he was tortured by government interrogators and threatened with new criminal charges. The pastor said his tormentors used taser gun on his head and verbally abused him.
Iranian intelligence officials are now claiming that Abedini is connected to anti-government groups and has taken action against the Iranian government. Abedini denies the allegations.
Interviewed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Sunday, Rouhani said it would make him "happier" if Iranians held captive in the US are freed and allowed to join their families in Iran.
"If the Americans take the appropriate steps and set them free, certainly the right environment will be open and the right circumstances will be created for us to do everything within our power and our purview to bring about the swiftest freedom for the Americans held in Iran as well," the Iranian president said.
With Iran's landmark nuclear agreement with world powers, Rouhani noted that there is no reason anymore for the US to hold prisoners who were arrested for violating the sanctions that are now being lifted by the UN Security Council under Resolution 22-31.
"Once these sanctions have been lifted, why keep those folks in American prisons? So, they must be freed," he said.
Meanwhile, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, a dual Iranian-American citizen, is expected to be sentenced in Iran this week, according to The Guardian.
He was arrested along with his wife Yaganeh Salehi at their home in Tehran last July 22. His trial has been held behind closed doors. He was charged with "espionage and other offences."
US officials earlier declared it unlawful to try the US-born correspondent as an Iranian citizen.
But Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said that "instead of projection, they should take a look at the unfair prosecution of Iranian citizens who are jailed in the US on baseless charges."
Another known American prisoner in Iran is Amir Hekmati, a former Marine sentenced to death in January 2012 for espionage, waging war against God and corrupting the earth, said.
The fourth American being held in Iran is Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent and contractor for the CIA, who reportedly vanished after visiting Iran in 2007. Iranian officials have denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in New York for last week's meeting of the UN General Assembly, meanwhile said he has yet to hear directly from the Iranians on their alleged plan for an exchange of prisoners.
