Pentagon chief visits Iraq amid U.S. pullout from Syria

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday, amid questions about how long U.S. troops withdrawing from northeast Syria will stay in Iraq.

Esper is expected to meet his Iraqi counterpart as well as Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and discuss the U.S. troop drawdown from Syria and the role Iraq will play in it.

His trip also follows Ankara and Moscow agreeing on Tuesday that Syrian and Russian forces will deploy in northeast Syria to remove Kurdish YPG fighters and their weapons from the border with Turkey.