Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov died of sudden heart failure on Thursday at the age of 66.

The following is a brief profile of the central Asian country's leader.

Niyazov was born in Ashgabat on Feb. 19, 1940. He was orphaned in childhood after his father was killed during World War II and his mother died in an earthquake which leveled the city in 1948.

After graduating from Leningrad (now St. Petersberg) Polytechnic Institute in Russia in 1967, where he majored in electrical engineering, he worked at a power station near Ashgabat.

Niyazov has been engaged in politics since 1970. In 1985, he was named first secretary of the central committee of the Communist Party in Turkmenistan, when it was a Soviet republic.

Niyazov was elected president of an independent Turkmenistan on June 21, 1992.

Niyazov's presidency was extended to 2002 for a second five-year term during a 1994 national referendum, and in 1999 he was declared president for life by the country's People's Council and parliament.

Under Niyazov's rule, Turkmenistan's gross domestic product (GDP) reached 23.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, a 20.7-percent increase from 2004.

Niyazov showed signs of a slight stroke in early October this year, and he later told the public that he was suffering from a heart disease.

Source: Xinhua