Iraqi president in hospital after suffering stroke

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani addresses the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York September 23, 2011. REUTERS/Mike Segar

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who has mediated among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties, was in hospital on Tuesday after suffering a stroke that left him in "critical but stable condition", government officials and lawmakers said.

Without Talabani, Iraq would lose an influential peace-maker who often eased tensions in the fragile power-sharing government and negotiated in the growing rift over oil between Baghdad and the OPEC member country's autonomous Kurdistan region.