Azerbaijan President Aliev in Stable Condition

Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart cannot contract powerfully enough to force sufficient blood through the circulatory system.

"The president is all right," said Tahir Taghi-Zadeh, the embassy’s political counselor.

In denying reports of a graver condition, Taghi-Zadeh noted that some have falsely said the president was dead.

Azerbaijani officials have said Aliev will return to his country, but doctors told The Associated Press the president’s condition was serious and said they warned him that he was too frail to fly home.

Aliev arrived two days after his son, Ilham Aliev, was appointed prime minister, a sign he was preparing to take over his father’s post in the small, oil-rich Caucasus nation.

The senior Aliev underwent bypass surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in 1999, and had prostate surgery there in February 2002 and a hernia operation earlier this year. In April he fell during a speech and cracked seven ribs, his son said.

Aliev, a former KGB official and Soviet-era leader of Azerbaijan, was elected president in 1993, two years after the nation became independent.