Iraqi President's health "showing signs of improvement"

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is responding well to treatment in hospital, officials say, two days after reportedly suffering a stroke, accoridng to BBC News.

His medical co-ordinator, Najmaldin Karim, told the Reuters news agency: "He has been responsive. He is showing clear signs of improvement".

Well-placed Kurdish sources had said on Tuesday that he was in a coma.

A veteran of the Kurdish guerrilla movement, Mr Talabani, 79, is Iraq's first president from the ethnic group.

He has struggled with his health in recent years and has often been treated abroad. The president had heart surgery in the US in 2008, and the previous year was flown to Jordan suffering from dehydration and exhaustion.

He is being treated at Baghdad Medical City, the largest medical complex in the Iraqi capital, which is being guarded by soldiers assigned to the presidential guard.

Mr Talabani has lived through decades of conflict with the central government and other Kurdish groups, including a period in exile before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

He took over the mainly ceremonial presidency in the years after the 2003 invasion, and has often used the position to mediate between Iraq's various religious and ethnic groups.