US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that his country is committed to maintaining its military presence in Iraq, during an unannounced visit to the country - today, Tuesday - nearly 20 years after the US-led invasion that overthrew the late President Saddam Hussein.
The invasion in 2003 claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and led to instability that eventually paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State after Washington withdrew its forces in 2011.
Austin - the most senior official in President Joe Biden's administration to visit Iraq - was the last commander in chief of US forces in Iraq after the invasion.
The US minister met with Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani, and he will also meet with the President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, amid a long-standing dispute over budget transfers and the sharing of oil revenues between the governments of Baghdad and Kurdistan.
"The American forces are ready to stay at the invitation of the Iraqi government," he told reporters after meeting Al-Sudani.
Austin stressed that "the United States will continue to consolidate and expand the partnership to support Iraq's security, stability and sovereignty."
He added that the US forces in Iraq "are non-combatants and work to provide advice and support in the war against terrorism led by Iraq, and this is a crucial task and we are proud of the support of our Iraqi partners."
He called on the Kurds to put aside their differences to build a prosperous future.
Later, Al-Sudani said in a statement that his government's approach is to maintain balanced relations with governments in the region and the world on the basis of common interests and respect for sovereignty, adding that "Iraq's stability is key to the region's security and stability."
The United States currently has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 additional troops in Syria, claiming to help provide advice and help local forces fight the armed Islamic State, which in 2014 took control of vast swathes of territory in both countries.
The Islamic State is now far from the formidable force it once was, but its cells are said to still exist in parts of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.
The administration of former US President George W. Bush claimed that its decision to invade Iraq was due to its belief that Saddam's government possessed weapons of mass destruction, but it and its allied forces later admitted that these stocks did not exist.
The Costs of War Project, part of Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, reports that between 185,000 and 280,000 Iraqi civilians died in the war waged by the United States and allies against Iraq.
Austin had made statements, in 2011, in which he said that the United States had achieved its military goals in Iraq while he was the commander of his country's forces in the Middle East.
But after 3 years, the United States returned thousands of soldiers to Iraq and Syria under former President Barack Obama, allegedly to support the fight against the Islamic State.