Bush and South Korea's Lee try to look past differences

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will try to move beyond past differences on Wednesday and focus on ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons and promoting free trade.

The two leaders are expected to skirt the controversial South Korean decision to partly lift a ban on American beef imports and concerns by Washington that Lee's left-leaning predecessor was too soft on North Korea.

Instead Bush and Lee will try to present a united front on the need to set up a process for verifying details of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, which is being dismantled, before Pyongyang can receive additional benefits.

The United States has told communist North Korea that it could be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as next week if a rigorous verification process is established, but the discussions have been lengthy.

"Unless we have from the North Koreans a verification protocol that is robust, the kind of protocol that was presented by the five parties to the North Koreans, then August 11th will come and go and there will be no change in the situation," said Dennis Wilder, a senior White House official.

The United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan have been negotiating for years with Pyongyang, offering economic and humanitarian aid in exchange for the reclusive government giving up its nuclear ambitions.

Large protests had been expected to greet Bush when he arrived in Seoul on Tuesday to signal lingering anger over the import of American beef, which is hitting store shelves for the first time in years after a mad cow disease scare.

RARE RALLY FOR BUSH

But the beef protests have largely fizzled out, and instead he was greeted by about 15,000 conservatives who held a prayer rally in support of the United States, a rare event for Bush, unpopular in much of the world over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lee had agreed to lift the beef ban in April when he visited Bush at the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, but faced a massive backlash at home. The deal was scaled back to permit only beef from cattle under 30 months old.

The men will meet at the South Korean presidential compound, the Blue House, and be joined by their wives for lunch at the Spring House, a traditional Korean building, a gesture the White House said was aimed at reciprocating the Camp David invitation.

Bush will later address U.S. soldiers at an Army garrison in the middle of the capital which is the command centre for some 28,000 American troops stationed in the country to defend against any attack from the North.

On the languishing free trade pact between South Korea and the United States, Wilder told reporters that the two leaders would compare notes on getting the deal through their respective legislatures.

"I think that will be part of our discussions to reinforce that this is a tough fight," said Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the White House National Security Council. "This isn't one where anything is guaranteed this year."

Democratic leaders who control the U.S. Congress have made it clear they are skeptical of the deal, particularly about whether it sufficiently opens the South Korean auto market to American manufacturers.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Jack Kim; editing by Paul Tait and Andrew Roche)