Canadian PM in Baghdad to support Iraq in fighting against Daesh

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Saturday arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad to boost bilateral ties and support Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which seizes large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Harper was received at Baghdad airport by his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi, and the two held a meeting in Abadi's office at heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad.

"The international community must cooperate to fight terrorism and eliminate it. Daash (IS group) now is in state of retreat and weakness," Abadi told reporters after his meeting with Harper.

"We have freed all areas in Diyala (province), and most of Salahudin (province) areas, and Baghdad has become safer more than any time before, and we are now fighting in Anbar (province) to liberate it and will go to Mosul," Abadi said referring to the latest offensives of the Iraqi security forces which liberated key cities and towns from the IS militants, including Salahudin provincial capital city of Tikrit.

Abadi also said that the economic cooperation between the two countries has started for long time and is continuing, "we have ambitions to enhance such cooperation in the field of investment and the participation of the Canadian companies in Iraq's economy."

For his part, Harper said that his country is looking forward to promoting ties with Iraq, in particular its joint efforts to fight IS terrorism, which has become a threat to Iraq and the whole world as well.

"We are proud to be part of the international coalition to fight terrorism which is not the problem for Iraq alone, but it is a regional and an international problem," Harper said.

Canada is part of the U.S.-led international coalition that supports the Iraqi forces with airstrikes, training and weapons, to push back IS expansion, which seized vast swaths of territory in northern Iraq since June 2014 and announced the establishment of a caliphate in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq.