BAGHDAD — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke and was in intensive care at a Baghdad hospital Tuesday, injecting new uncertainty into the country’s political future a year after the U.S. military left.

Although his official powers are limited, Talabani, 79, is respected by many Iraqis as a rare unifying figure seen as able to rise above the ethnic and sectarian rifts that still divide the country. Known for his joking manner and walruslike mustache, Talabani has been actively involved in trying to mediate a crisis between Iraq’s central government and the country’s ethnic Kurdish minority group, of which he is a member.

Iraqi state TV and several officials, including the prime minister’s spokesman and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, confirmed that Talabani had a stroke. The severity remains unclear.

Talabani’s spokesman, Nasser al-Ani, told reporters that the president is in stable condition, though he did not say what he was suffering from. Medical officials who appeared with him were just as circumspect. They did not take questions.

“The president’s health is being closely followed up by our medical team. The vital organs are working and we hope that there will be no deterioration,” said Dr. Ayad Abbas from the intensive-care unit where Talabani is being treated. “We hope that we will see improvement in the coming hours.”

The presidential office initially said Tuesday that Talabani was hospitalized the previous evening after showing signs of fatigue. A later statement citedtests showing he is suffering from a condition caused by a hardening of his arteries. It did not identify the condition.

Some local media reports suggested that Talabani had died, but Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that was not the case.

Rifle-toting soldiers assigned to the presidential guard were deployed around Medical City, Baghdad’s largest medical complex, where Talabani is being treated .

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was among those who stopped by to check on the president, according to his spokesman, Ali al-Moussawi.

Information for this article was contributed by Sinan Salaheddin, Sameer N. Yacoub and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/19/2012