ASHGABAT (AFP) -- Fifty-four Iranians are to be pardoned in a mass prisoner release in Turkmenistan during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, official sources in this former Soviet republic said on Monday.

The Iranians "can be handed over to Iran at any time," President Saparmurat Niyazov was quoted by the official Neitralny Turkmenistan newspaper as saying.

More than 7,000 inmates are being freed in this year’s jail clear-out, which for the third year in succession has been presented as an act of piety by President Saparmurat Niyazov, who has ruled this isolated Central Asian republic since it broke from Moscow in 1991.

In addition to those from Turkmenistan’s south-western neighbor Iran, 126 other foreigners are being freed, most of them citizens of other former Soviet countries and of Afghanistan, a law enforcement official told AFP.

Of the foreign prisoners, "the majority have been doing time on drug-related charges," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Since dispensing with Marx and Lenin, Niyazov has set Turkmenistan on a quasi-spiritual course blending nationalism, Islam and tribal lore with his own personality cult.

A report commissioned by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe released earlier this year painted a bleak picture of life inside Turkmenistan’s prisons, including accounts of widespread beatings, prostitution and prisoners being forced to purchase cats and dogs as food.

Recognized as a "neutral" country by the United Nations, Turkmenistan has strengthened ties with neighboring Iran, particularly as a market for its vast natural gas reserves as well as electricity exports, which it also hopes to route through Iran to Turkey.

Niyazov was had himself anointed president-for-life in 1999 and prefers to be addressed as Turkmenbashi (father-of-all-Turkmen) the Great.