The United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution at the UN headquarters in New York July 14, 2017. The UN Security Council on Friday extended the mandate of the UN political mission in Iraq until July 31, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Friday extended the mandate of the United Nations political mission in Iraq until July 31, 2018.

Unanimously adopting a resolution, the Security Council decided the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the secretary-general's special representative would continue to pursue their mandates, outlined at the time of the previous mandate extension in 2016.

The UN body also called on the Iraqi government to continue providing security and logistical support to the UN's presence on the ground.

The UNAMI is a political mission established in 2003 by the UN Security Council Resolution 1500, at the request of the Iraqi government. The mission supports Iraq's development efforts on political, electoral and humanitarian levels.

The 15-nation council said it took into account a June 14 letter from Iraq's foreign minister to the secretary-general, in which the Iraqi government reaffirmed UNAMI's important role, particularly given that the country's security forces "are about to rid Iraq of the terrorist gangs of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) and to wipe them out once and for all."

Iraq formally announced on Monday that Mosul has been freed from the IS after nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in the country.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, came under IS control since June 2014 when government forces fled.