An aircraft from Oman`s Royal Air Force carrying Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, both 29, arrived at Muscat`s Royal airport, the private airfield of Oman`s Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the reporter said.
Wearing their light-coloured shirts and dark trousers, the pair ran down the steps of the plane smiling and shouting happily as they hugged their parents and took photographs with them, added the reporter.
"They are healthy, happy and strong," Fattal`s father told AFP.
Sara Shourd who was arrested with the two and released last year was also at the the airport, in addition to US ambassador in Muscat Richard Schmierer and members of Oman`s ministry for palace security, the sultanate`s top security body.
Fattal and Bauer were released earlier Wednesday from Tehran`s notorious Evin prison and boarded a flight to the Gulf sultanate of Oman, which paid their bail, $400,000 dollars each.
The sultan`s envoy to Iran who mediated for their release, Salim al-Ismaili, arrived with them on the same plane. "After all the effort I`ve exerted, I`m going to need a one-year vacation," he told reporters.
Bauer and Fattal were arrested along with Shourd near the mountainous border with Iraq on July 31, 2009. All three maintained they innocently strayed into Iran.
Shourd was released last year on humanitarian and medical grounds and her bail was set at $500,000 and paid through Oman, a US Gulf ally that maintains friendly relations with Iran.
The release of the pair, who had been in custody for more than two years in a case that poisoned already difficult relations between Tehran and Washington, came as President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was in New York for the UN General Assembly. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
