ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq still has the need for foreign troops, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani told reporters from Munich on Sunday, saying that they believe the Islamic State (ISIS) still poses a threat to the region.

Barzani told reporters in Munich that “that the Region still sees ISIS as a serious threat,” adding that “Iraq as a whole still needs the presence of foreign forces.”

“It is not the right time for the coalition forces to leave Iraq,” he added.

Barzani’s presser comes after he met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, where among other topics, they discussed combatting terrorism in the region.

Iraq and the US in September 2024 announced they had reached an agreement to wrap up the US-led coalition’s military presence in the country by “no later than the end of September 2025” and transition to bilateral security partnerships “in a manner that supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS.”

The coalition’s military mission in Syria is set to continue until September 2026.

Alawi al-Bindawi, a member of the parliament’s security and defense committee, told The New Region earlier this month that the Iraqi government has made significant progress in negotiations regarding the withdrawal of US forces. 

However, he expressed concerns that Trump’s return to the White House could delay or obstruct the process.

The US has approximately 2,400 military personnel deployed in Iraq. US forces were deployed to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government in 2014 to fight ISIS, which had then overrun large swathes of Iraqi territory in the north and west of the country.