French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius arrived in Baghdad on Sunday for talks with officials on efforts to confront Islamic State militants who have advanced across northern Iraq, state television reported.

Kurdish officials said Fabius would later travel to their regional capital Arbil for further talks.

Islamic State has captured wide swaths of northern Iraq since June, executing non-Sunni Muslim captives, displacing tens of thousands of people and drawing the first U.S. air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011.