Former Iraqi president Abdel Rahman Aref, who was ousted by Saddam Hussein's Baath party in 1968, died in Jordan on Friday at the age of 91, his family said. Aref, who had been living in Amman for three years, died of natural causes at Al-Hussein Medical Centre, a military hospital in the Jordanian capital, according to a family source.
In Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani expressed his condolences over Aref's death and said the former president would "always be remembered in the country's history." Expressing his condolences, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his government was ready "to bring the former president's body to Iraq and bury it at his family graveyard."
Aref, who is survived by five children, took part in the 1958 military coup led by his brother Abdel Salam Aref that overthrew the Iraqi monarchy. After his brother died in a helicopter crash - whose circumstances have never been fully explained - he ruled the country from 1966 to 1968, until he himself was ousted in a Baathist coup.
He then lived in exile in Turkey before returning in 1979. Saddam's Baath party ruled Iraq with an iron grip for decades until it was toppled by the US-led invasion of 2003.