Davos, Switzerland - Remarks by President Trump and President Salih of the Republic of Iraq Before Bilateral Meeting:

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, thank you very much.  It’s great to be with the President of Iraq, and we are obviously working on a lot of things together.  We’re working on military.  We’re working on ISIS.  We’re working on — we have a whole host of very difficult things to discuss, and some very positive things also.  And we’ve been friends, and the relationship is very good.  And I just want to thank you very much, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT SALIH:  Thank you, Mr. President.  Thank you.  It’s an important opportunity to meet President Trump to talk about the developments in our neighborhood.  These are challenging times, difficult times.  And I look for a very fruitful and very candid conversation with the President.

We have had an enduring relationship, and the United States has been a partner to Iraq and in the war against ISIS.  This mission needs to be accomplished, and I believe you and I share the same mission for a stable, sovereign Iraq that is at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbors.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Great .  Thank you very much.

Q    What is the plan for pulling out U.S. troops from Iraq?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, we’re talking about a lot of different things, and you’ll be hearing whatever we do.  But they like what we’re doing and we like them, and we’ve had a very good relationship.  I can only speak for my administration; I won’t speak for past administrations, frankly.  But we’ve had a very good relationship.

And we’re down to a very low number.  We’re down to 5,000.  So we’re down to a very low number — historically low.  And we’ll see what happens.

Q    Mr. President, are you still considering sanctions against Iraq?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  We’ll see what happens because we do have to do things on our terms.  We (inaudible) —

PRESIDENT SALIH:  We have a lot of common interests: the fight against extremism; stability in the neighborhood —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  That’s right.

PRESIDENT SALIH:  — a sovereign Iraq that is stable, friends of the neighbors,  and friends of the United States.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  And we’re also involved with them in their oil business, and that’s always been very important from their standpoint and from our standpoint.  So we have a lot of very positive things to talk about.

But we are down to a low number, and we’ve been there for quite a while.  So we’ll make a determination.

Okay?  Thank you all very much.

Q    President Salih, what was your reaction to the death of Qasem Soleimani?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Thank you.

We’re going to do a news conference today.  We have one other meeting, and then we’re going to be doing a news conference right after this.

Q    You’re doing a new conference, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  So, that’ll be, I would say, within the next 45 minutes.  Yeah, before leaving.  We’re going to be leaving in a little while.

We’ve had tremendous success in Davos.  And we’ll be leaving in a little while, but we’ll do a news conference — a quick news conference.  And then we head back.  Some of you are coming on a very nice plane.

Okay?  So I’ll see you in a little while.