BAGHDAD — Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, was taken to a hospital in Baghdad after suffering a medical emergency on Monday that was related to hardening of the arteries, statements from his office said on Tuesday. He is in stable condition, a statement said.
Scott Nelson/WpN for The New York Times
President Jilal Talabani of Iraq in May 2006 in Baghdad.
Reuters quoted an unnamed senior Kurdish official as saying that the president, 79, had suffered a stroke and had received treatment for blocked arties. Mr. Talabani has been receiving medical treatment abroad in recent years.
The statements from his office gave few details about Mr. Talabani’s condition but said that he was being treated by specialists at a facility, known as the Baghdad Medical City. One of the statements said the condition was linked to “his recent efforts to achieve stability in the country and due to fatigue and stress.” It said the medical emergency occurred on Monday evening.
Mr. Talabani and the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had held talks earlier in the day on Monday in Baghdad. After that meeting, Mr. Talabani’s office said the two men stressed the need for calm and transparent dialogue, as well as “working according to the spirit of the constitution and the national agreements” as the way to solve the country’s problems.
Mr. Maliki later visited Mr. Talabani in the hospital.
The reports about the health of Mr. Talabani, who is Kurdish, took place against the backdrop of a crisis that involves a standoff in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq between troops sent by Mr. Maliki and soldiers, known as the Peshmerga, sent by Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region.
Almost a year after the departure of the American military, the tension in the Kurdish region has the potential to escalate, with serious consequences that could exacerbate the country’s ethnic division because the Kurds have a measure of autonomy in the north, oversee their own security forces and have longstanding ambitions for independence.
President of Iraq Is Hospitalized With ‘Medical Emergency’
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President of Iraq Is Hospitalized With ‘Medical Emergency’
