President Joe Biden confirmed on Monday that the U.S. will not be in "a combat mission" in Iraq by the end of the year.

"We are not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission" in Iraq, Biden said in an Oval Office meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

"We support strengthening Iraq’s democracy and we’re anxious to make sure the election goes forward in October,” Biden added. "And we’re also committed to our security cooperation, our shared fight against ISIS.

"It’s critical for the stability of the region and our counter-terrorism cooperation will continue, even as we shift to this new phase we’re going to be talking about," the president continued.

The U.S.' continuing role in Iraq, Biden said, is "to be available to continue to train, to assist, to help, and to deal with ISIS as it arrives."

Biden pledged that the two countries will work together to fight terrorism in the years to come.

"The sacrifices that so many have made to build the US-Iraq partnership has been real, and it's consequential," Biden said to Iraq's leader. "And my administration is committed to strengthen that partnership."

Biden pledged that COVID-19 vaccines will be in Iraq "quickly," and said that the U.S. is "anxious" to ensure "the election goes forward in October."

A White House official said the Iraqi security forces are “battle tested" and have proved themselves “capable" of protecting their country. Still, the Biden administration recognizes that IS remains a considerable threat, the official said.

Indeed, the IS terror organization is a shell of its former self since it was largely routed on the battlefield in 2017. Still, it has shown it can still carry out high-casualty attacks. Last week, the group claimed responsibility for a roadside bombing that killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens in a busy suburban Baghdad market.

The U.S. and Iraq agreed in April that the U.S. transition to a train-and-advise mission meant the U.S. combat role would end, but they didn’t settle on a timetable for completing that transition. The announcement comes less than three months before parliamentary elections slated for Oct. 10.

Al-Kadhimi faces no shortage of problems. Iranian-backed militias operating inside Iraq have stepped up attacks against U.S. forces in recent months, and a series of devastating hospital fires that left dozens of people dead and soaring coronavirus infections have added fresh layers of frustration for the nation.

For al-Kadhimi, the ability to offer the Iraqi public a date for the end of the U.S. combat presence could be a feather in his cap ahead of the election.

Biden administration officials say al-Kadhimi also deserves credit for improving Iraq’s standing in the Mideast.

Last month, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visited Baghdad for joint meetings — the first time an Egyptian president has made an official visit since the 1990s, when ties were severed after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

In March, Pope Francis made an historic visit to Iraq, praying among ruined churches in Mosul, a former IS stronghold, and meeting with the influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf.

The U.S. and Iraq have been widely expected to use the face-to-face meeting to announce plans for the end of the combat mission, and al-Kadhimi before his trip to Washington made clear that he believes it’s time for the U.S. to wind down the combat mission.

“There is no need for any foreign combat forces on Iraqi soil,” al-Kadhimi told The Associated Press.

The U.S. troop presence has stood at about 2,500 since late last year when former President Donald Trump ordered a reduction from 3,000.

The announcement to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq comes as the U.S. is in the final stages of ending its war in Afghanistan, nearly 20 years after President George W. Bush launched the war in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The U.S. mission of training and advising Iraqi forces has its most recent origins in former President Barack Obama’s decision in 2014 to send troops back to Iraq. The move was made in response to the Islamic State group’s takeover of large portions of western and northern Iraq and a collapse of Iraqi security forces that appeared to threaten Baghdad. Obama had fully withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, eight years after the U.S. invasion.

The distinction between combat troops and those involved in training and advising can be blurry, given that the U.S. troops are under threat of attack. But it is clear that U.S. ground forces have not been on the offensive in Iraq in years, other than largely unpublicized special operations missions aimed at Islamic State group militants.

Pentagon officials for years have tried to balance what they see as a necessary military presence to support the Iraqi government’s fight against IS with domestic political sensitivities in Iraq to a foreign troop presence. A major complication for both sides is the periodic attacks on bases housing U.S. and coalition troops by Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran.

The vulnerability of U.S. troops was demonstrated most dramatically in January 2020 when Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on al-Asad air base in western Iraq. No Americans were killed, but dozens suffered traumatic brain injury from the blasts. That attack came shortly after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad International Airport.

The U.S. military mission since 2014 has been largely focused on training and advising Iraqi forces. In April, in a joint statement following a U.S.-Iraqi meeting in Washington, they declared, “the mission of U.S. and coalition forces has now transitioned to one focused on training and advisory tasks, thereby allowing for the redeployment of any remaining combat forces from Iraq” at a time to be determined later.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.