BAGHDAD (AFP) - US vice president-elect Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad on Monday and held talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP. "President Talabani and I have met with him," Zebari said. "We discussed the latest developments in Iraq and the good progress that has been made. He is aware that his new administration is facing a new reality. He was encouraging us to continue our efforts," Zebari said. "He emphasised the need for reconciliation (talks)," he added, referring to the process of national reconciliation in Iraq which has been marred by deadly sectarian violence. The Delaware senator, who will surrender his seat to assume the US vice presidency on January 20 and also visited international soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, arrived in Iraq via Kuwait. There was no official announcement of his visit. Biden, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham were also in Pakistan on Friday for talks with President Asif Ali Zardari. US president-elect Barack Obama has vowed to pull one or two combat brigades out of Iraq every month over a period of 16 months, leaving just a residual security force of unspecified size remaining. Washington, which currently has 146,000 soldiers in Iraq, signed a bilateral agreement with Baghdad in November, allowing its combat forces to remain in the country until the end of 2011. As Biden landed in Iraq outgoing US President George W. Bush admitted it had been a mistake to hand a banner saying "mission accomplished" on a US battleship where he declared major combat operations in Iraq over in 2003. "Clearly, putting a 'mission accomplished' on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," Bush said when asked at what he said would be his final press conference about any errors he had made in his eight years in office. "It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently but, nevertheless, it conveyed a different message." Bush also acknowledged he had experienced some let-downs during his two terms in office, as he prepared to hand over to Obama. "There have been disappointments. You know, not having weapons of mass destruction was a dig disappointment," he said, referring to his administration's earlier assertions that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was stockpiling such arms. The accusations were used as the basis for the US-led invasion of Iraq, but were subsequently found to be baseless.