U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that South Korea should determine for itself the details of an impending South Korean troop deployment to Iraq, including the type and number of troops to be dispatched.

Meeting with reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, Rumsfeld said the U.S. wants "Korea to do whatever it believes is right," adding "We do not want countries to do things they don't want to do."

However, the defense secretary said he would like to see a large number of troops contributed by other countries, calling it 'important' for other nations to have a commitment to success in Iraq.

South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuk said in Seoul early this week that the United States wanted a larger number of South Korean troops than the 3,000 soldiers that Seoul had proposed.

Rumsfeld leaves Wednesday for talks in Japan before going on to South Korea for an annual bilateral security consultative meeting scheduled for next week.

His visit to Seoul comes amid diplomatic efforts to arrange a new round of six-party talks with North Korea aimed at resolving the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.