Officials from the 12 countries involved in a Pacific free trade initiative will seek to advance their stalled talks during a meeting in Ottawa starting Thursday, following U.S. President Barack Obama's call for an agreement on the framework by November.

While advocates of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are calling for drastic progress at the 10-day gathering, negotiation sources say a hefty amount of work remains to be done before concluding the talks, which have been delayed partly due to Japan-U.S. bickering over tariff issues.

Talks for the TPP, which would create a free trade zone encompassing around 40 percent of global gross domestic product and a third of world trade, have entered their fifth year, with the member countries also taking pains to find common ground on the issues of intellectual property rights as well as reform of state-owned enterprises to ensure fair competition.