Baku-APA. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani returned home on Saturday after 18 months of stroke recovery in Germany, an Iraqi official television reported.
Talabani arrived at an airport Sulaimaniyah, some 330 km northeast of the capital Baghdad. He is scheduled to be transferred immediately to his residency, the state-run Iraqiya channel said.
In December 2012, Talabani was admitted to a Baghdad hospital after showing signs of fatigue, and was treated for an unspecified health problem. The tests later showed that he suffered from arteriosclerosis because of tiredness, though his condition was described as stable. The 81-year-old president had various health problems and had undergone several medical procedures before 2012.
After a heart surgery in the United States in 2008, Talabani suffered from stroke again in 2012, raising new concerns about Iraq's stability, as he is widely seen as a core figure to balance ethnic and sectarian divisions in the country.
Talabani is a former rebel leader fighting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government. He is also the first Kurd to become the country's president, though it was a largely ceremonial position.
Founder and secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a main Kurdish political party in Iraq, Talabani has been an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy for more than 50 years.
Talabani's return follows Wednesday's election of Iraq's new parliament speaker. After electing a Sunni speaker and two deputies, the lawmakers overcame their first obstacle in forming a new government that could include all Iraqi factions.
According to Iraqi laws, a new president must be elected within 30 days after the parliament speaker was chosen. Despite his limited power, Talabani is respected by many Iraqis as a rare unifying figure that is able to rise above the ethnic and sectarian rifts that still divide the country.
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