President Obama holds media availability with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

SPEAKERS: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

PRIME MINISTER NOURI AL-MALIKI OF IRAQ

[*] OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Before I discuss the meeting that I've just had with Prime Minister Maliki, I just want to make a brief statement about Afghanistan.

I had the opportunity to speak with President Karzai this morning, and I wanted to congratulate him on accepting the certification of the recent election.

As we all know, this has been a very difficult time in Afghanistan to not only carry out an election under difficult circumstances, where there were a whole host of security issues that had to be resolved, but also post-election a lot of uncertainty.

President Karzai, as well as the other candidates, I think, have shown that they have the interests of the Afghan people at heart, that this is a reflection of a commitment to rule of law and an insistence that the Afghan people's will should be done. And so I expressed the American people's appreciation for this step.