Iraqi President in ICU after Stroke

Local Editor

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, was in hospital on Tuesday after suffering a stroke that left him in "critical but stable condition", government officials and lawmakers said.

Reports on his medical condition varied. Three government sources said he was in critical condition, but his office said the 79-year-old president was stable under intensive medical supervision after receiving treatment for blocked arteries.

"President Talabani has suffered a light stroke. His condition is stable now and doctors are closely monitoring him and if they decide he should be transferred outside then he'll go," veteran Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman, a close Talabani associate who was in the Baghdad hospital.
Talabani had been suffering from ill health for much of this year and received medical treatment overseas several times in the last two years.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited the hospital earlier on the day.
Under Iraq's constitution, the parliament should elect a new president if the post becomes vacant.

Iraq law would see one of the vice presidents take over Talabani's duties before the parliamentary vote. But Iraq's Sunni Vice President, Tareq al-Hashemi, is outside the country after he fled to escape charges he ran death squads. He has been sentenced to death in absentia.

A veteran of the Kurdish guerrilla movement, Talabani survived wars, exile and infighting in northern Iraq to become the country's first Kurdish president a few years after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org