text: BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid a visit to Baghdad on Friday to congratulate its citizens for last weekend's "remarkable" Iraq-led provincial elections, a process he said "augurs well for the transition process and the solidifying of Iraq's national reconciliation." 
  
  U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, meets Friday in Baghdad with Iraq President Jalal Talabani. 
  
  On a tour that also has taken him to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ban met with Iraqi leaders and appeared at a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose allies won big in nine of the 14 provinces where the local elections were held. 
  
  "I have been following the electoral process closely from the early days of the parliamentary debate over the elections law last summer to the final stages of adjudication of the complaints and yesterday evening's release of the provisional results," Ban said at the news conference, according to prepared remarks issued by the United Nations. 
  
  "It will be some days before final results are known, but current indications are that the elections have been successfully carried out." 
  
  Ban last visited Iraq in 2007. In March of that year, he got a taste of the violence that often rocks the Iraqi capital. An explosion rattled Baghdad's International Zone, where he was holding a televised news conference with al-Maliki. 
  
  Apparently used to such blasts, al-Maliki remained stoic, while Ban briefly ducked before regaining his composure and continuing. 
  
  Now, he said, he's "very much impressed to have witnessed myself the great success and progress the Iraqi government and people have made under the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki, and I congratulate you," he said, emphasizing the improvements in security. 