Story Highlights• Problems put down to exhaustion, leader's son says• Jalal Talabani's son denies father had a heart attack, catheterization • Son says father walked on and off plane that took him to Jordan Adjust font size:
    AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in a Jordanian hospital on Monday after experiencing dizziness and low blood pressure a day earlier in Iraq, his son and a physician said. "He had been working very hard over the last week or so; they put it down to fatigue or exhaustion," said the son, Qubad Talabani, in a phone interview from Colorado. The son, the senior Talabani's private doctor and a spokesman for the presidency denied reports that Talabani had a catheterization procedure on his heart. "He has not had a heart catheter inserted," Qubad Talabani said. The doctor and the spokesman said the Iraqi leader is suffering from exhaustion and lung inflammation and is undergoing a series of tests they described as precautionary. The 73-year-old was flown Sunday from the northern Iraq town of Sulaimaniya to Amman's state-of-the-art King Hussein Medical Center as "a precautionary measure," Qubad Talabani said. While there, he has undergone CT scans, which have detected no abnormalities, and "his vital organs seem to be functioning well," Qubad Talabani said. "I think his stay in Amman remains to be a precautionary measure to ensure that we leave no stone unturned," he said. Jordan's King Abdullah visited Talabani and wished him a swift recovery. Without assistance, the Iraqi president walked onto and off the plane that took him to the Jordanian capital, his son said, adding that his father had to be persuaded to seek medical care. The White House said it provided an airplane equipped with medical equipment to fly Talabani to Amman. A senior U.S. military official said Sunday that the U.S. understood that Talabani had a heart attack, an assertion that his son denied flatly. "He has not had a heart attack; his heart is in very good condition," Qubad Talabani said Monday. "This is not true at all, the president's case doesn't involve any heart problems. He did not suffer any heart attack. His heart is 100 percent good," the president's doctor, Yedkar Hikmat, told The Associated Press. His son said the longtime Kurdish leader's departure from Iraq for Jordan's capital should not be interpreted as an indication that he is in grave health. "It's quite regular and quite normal for senior Iraqi politicians to receive checkups or medical treatment outside of Iraq; I don't think that this is too big of an issue," Qubad Talabani said. The senior Talabani is head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main parties that controls Iraqi Kurdistan. CNN's Jennifer Eccleston contributed to this report. Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, was flown to Amman, Jordan, for medical treatment on Sunday.
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