Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon says parties to the six-nation nuclear talks share the view that the multilateral nuclear discussions should be resumed before the end of this year. At a regular weekly news briefing on Wednesday, Ban said countries involved in the six-way talks are making bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts to kickstart the stalled nuclear dialogue. Ban said Lee Jong-seok, deputy director of the National Security Council, is currently in Washington meeting with U.S. officials, including Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, to discuss the dialogue’s resumption. The director of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of Japan's Foreign Ministry, Yabunaka Mitoji, who is in Pyongyang for talks on abducted Japanese nationals, will also reportedly press the North to return to the negotiating table. Ban also said his government would seek parliamentary approval for the extended deployment of South Korean troops in Iraq. He asserted that the Zaitun unit's original mission of helping in Iraq's reconstruction and maintaining peace in the region of Irbil would remain unchanged, even after the prospective parliamentary approval of the unit’s extended tour of duty.