BAGHDAD - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday he will not sign an execution order for Tareq Aziz, the former deputy of dictator Saddam Hussein. Tareq Aziz was sentenced to death last month over the persecution of Islamic parties. “No, I will not sign the execution order for Tareq Aziz, because I am a socialist,” Talabani told French television France 24 in an interview. “I sympathise with Tareq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian. Moreover he is an old man who is over 70,” he said. Iraq's high tribunal passed a death sentence on Aziz, once the international face of Saddam's government, in late October. The Vatican and Russia have both called on Iraq not to carry out the death sentence on humanitarian grounds, noting his age and the fact he has health problems. Aziz was well known in foreign capitals and at the United Nations before Saddam's downfall.