Biden's unannounced tour of world hotspots had previously taken him to Kabul,where he met Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and to Islamabad, where he met with top Pakistani officials.
He landed at Baghdad airport late Wednesday and, according to reporters travelling with him, his first meeting Thursday morning was with the top US commander in Iraq General Lloyd Austin and US ambassador James Jeffrey.
"I'm here to help the Iraqis celebrate the progress they made. They formed a government. And that's a good thing. They have a long way to go," Biden told reporters during a photo-op with the two officials at the US embassy inBaghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone.
He later in the morning went into talks Maliki -- his first meeting with the premier since he began his second term.
Starkly illustrating Biden's comment that there is still progress to be made inIraq, three bombs exploded near mosques in central and northern Baghdadhours after he arrived, killing two people and wounding 13 others, an interior ministry official said.
According to the White House, Biden is also to meet Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iyad Allawi, the Shiite Muslim who heads the Iraqiya bloc that won the most votes in Iraq's elections last year.
Biden's visit, his seventh to Iraq since January 2009, comes days after radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a potent force in Iraqi politics, exhorted a boisterous crowd to resist the US "occupation" by all means in his first speech since returning home to the holy city of Najaf.
Maliki was approved for a second term by parliament on December 21 along with a national unity cabinet after over nine months of political deadlock.
Though combat operations have officially ended, som
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