Azerbaijan president to travel to US

Earlier Azerbaijan’s consul in Turkey, Ibrahim Nabioglu, had been quoted by an Azeri television station as saying the 80-year-old president would be flown home to the capital, Baku, on Thursday.

But the source close to Aliyev’s administration told AFP the president was now due to be flown to the United States, adding that his "travel plans have changed".

It was not yet clear when Aliyev would be travelling, he said.

No Azeri officials were available to comment.

Aliyev has been a regular patient at a clinic in the US city of Cleveland, Ohio, where in 1999 he underwent heart bypass surgery. Last year he returned to the same clinic for a hernia operation.

The 80-year-old president has not been seen in public since he checked into an elite military clinic in Turkey on July 8.

Aides initially denied reports of a serious health problem, but this week admitted this week he was being treated for a heart condition.

However, the true extent of his health problem remains shrouded in mystery.

Aliyev’s son Ilham was named prime minister on Monday in a move which many saw as a preparation for him to succeed his father as president.

Under the constitution of the former Soviet republic, the new prime minister would take over as caretaker president if his father were deemed too unwell to remain in office.

If that happened, analysts say it would effectively give 41-year-old Ilham a head start in presidential elections set for October 15, and cement the former Soviet Union’s first political dynasty.

Ilham was confirmed as prime minister by a near unanimous parliamentary vote on Monday following a personal request by Aliyev from his hospital bed.

Opposition parties reacted to the appointment with anger, but there was relief among Western companies, who have poured billions of dollars (euros) into developing Azerbaijan’s oil reserves and had feared Aliyev’s ill health could lead to a chaotic power vacuum.

A reformed playboy and gambler, Ilham until Monday worked as vice president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company, and had been carefully groomed for high office.

But many observers question whether he has the authority to hold together the fractious clans which make up Azerbaijan’s ruling regime.

Heidar Aliyev, regarded with affection by many Azeris who know him by the nickname "Baba", or grandfather, had his first stint in power in Baku in 1969 when he was appointed Azerbaijan’s Communist Party boss.

He left for Moscow in 1982 to join the ruling Soviet Politburo, but was sacked in 1987 as part of Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms.

Aliyev returned to power in 1993, winning election as president after Abulfaz Echilbey fled the country amid the disastrous war with Armenia over the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.