REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BAGHDAD -- Iraqi former President and the leader of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talabani died Tuesday, the Iraqi official television reported.

Talabani, who suffered a stroke, was admitted to a hospital in Germany after his health was deteriorated recently, and he passed away in the hospital, the state-run Iraqiya channel said.

Talabani, a veteran leader of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, was born on November 12, 1933 in Kelkan village near the town of Koy Sanjaq in northern Iraq.

The eighty-four-year old Talabani is a leading Kurdish statesman and founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two ruling parties in the autonomous Kurdish region.

Talabani was an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy in Iraq for more than 50 years. Apart from his native Kurdish language, Talabani is fluent in Arabic, Persian, and English.

He became the President of Iraq in 2005 and stepped down in 2014, after a long period of treatment following a stroke in 2012.

Talabani was known as Iraq's peacemaker, who played a vital role in the country's unity during the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But his health condition and long absence have caused a decline in his influence.

Talabani was the first non-Arab president of Iraq, although Abdul Karim Qasim was of partial Kurdish.

He is married to Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, daughter of Ibrahim Ahmed, a lieutenant of the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani, father of the current regional President Masoud Barzani. His youngest son, Qubad, is the deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil.

The death of the Kurdish leader, Talabani, came as tensions are running high between Baghdad government and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan after the Kurdish region held a controversial referendum on independence of Kurdistan and disputed areas, including Kirkuk.

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