CNBC: Interview with Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi

CNBC’s Hadley Gamble sat down with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi in Davos to talk about the country’s progress, economy and fight against the Islamic State. The interview, held during the annual World Economic Forum, began with the prime minister discussing the war against ISIS: “we are achieving victory over ISIS. We have liberated large areas of Iraq from ISIS control. ISIS are on the run now, and they have been defeated in many areas. We have planned for this year, 2016, to get ISIS out of Iraq. We are working now, we are sending more troops up north to liberate it from Daesh and I think that is the last stronghold of Daesh.”

He continued: “We have to sustain this war with Daesh, we have to sustain our economy. Iraq was dependent on oil for many years, but now we have introduced, my government has introduced reforms now in the economy and we are very much successful. We have slashed government spending by a large margin, of course in relationship to that, of course corruption will be slashed, that's why I think that many corrupt people now are hitting back, but they are not successful so far, I hope they will not be successful. I think I have three wars at the moment. One with Daesh, one with corrupt people, and the third one with the economy, and we are working very hard on this.”