Ailing Iraqi president arrives in Jordan for tests
Source: Reuters
(Adds Talabani undergoes medical tests, U.S. comment ) By Suleiman al-Khalidi AMMAN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Jordan for medical tests on Sunday after suffering low blood pressure, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said. A close aide to Talabani, an influential figure with close links to Washington, denied media reports of a heart attack. "It's a lie. He is exhausted...he had a very long week in Sulaimaniya meeting with party leaders," he told Reuters. Talabani is involved in political efforts to quell fierce sectarian rivalries in Iraq, while U.S. troop reinforcements attempt to root out militant groups in Baghdad and avert a slide into allout civil war. A Jordanian official and medical staff said Talabani was driven from Amman airport in a convoy to the specialist King Hussein Medical Centre. "The guest is now being thoroughly examined by a team of specialist doctors," said a medical administrator inside the military run hospital where security guards barred journalists from entering the front gate. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told Reuters in Baghdad: "He had a drop in blood pressure. Doctors said he needs further tests." Salih, a Kurd, is close to the president, a former Kurdish guerrilla leader in his early 70s. A statement issued by Talabani's office said there was no cause for concern, but gave no details of his illness. CLOSE LINKS TO WASHINGTON "Because of his hard work in past days, President Jalal Talabani has become ill and the doctors advised him to take some tests and now he is on his way to Jordan," the statement said. "This morning he woke up and he felt very tired. The doctor checked him up and didn't find anything wrong. But Sulaimaniya doesn't have all the technology and he is the president so the doctor convinced him to do further tests." Talabani's post is largely ceremonial but he is an influential political figure at home and in Washington. On Saturday, Talabani met U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq and held a joint news conference with Kurdish regional President Masoud Barzani. Talabani heads the secular, socialist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two parties that dominate the Kurdish enclave that broke away from Baghdad's control after the 1991 Gulf war. A former guerrilla leader who fought Saddam Hussein for years, Talabani capped a life dedicated to the Kurdish cause by becoming Iraq's first Kurdish head of state. Born in 1933, Talabani has spent most of his life fighting for independence for Kurds. He is known affectionately among Kurds as Mam, or uncle. (Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons and Mariam Karouny and Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad and Washington bureau)
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