By Yoko Kubota
SEOUL (Reuters) - Leaders of Japan and South Korea met on Monday to seek economic cooperation amid the global financial crisis and discuss regional issues such as how to move forward talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms programme.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's two-day visit to South Korea comes as the leaders of both countries face falling personal approval ratings. Talks will likely steer clear of simmering disputes such as a territorial row over desolate islets.
Support for Aso's cabinet is hovering below 20 percent, a nationwide poll showed on Sunday. President Lee Myung-bak is not much better with a rate of about 23 percent.
Their summit also comes at a time when Tokyo and Seoul have their eye on China's growing economic and diplomatic clout.
The bilateral meeting is expected to focus on bolstering economic cooperation between the two export-dependent countries hard hit by the global economic slowdown.
Aso, accompanied by some 20 Japanese business leaders, said on Sunday he was concentrating on commercial links with Seoul. Both leaders said they want to bring new life to sputtering talks on a bilateral free trade deal, stalled by wrangling over tariffs.
The two countries are each other's third-largest trading partners after China and the United States. Japan-South Korea trade totalled $81.4 billion (54 billion pounds) in 2007, up 4.8 percent from the previous year, according to Japan's foreign ministry.
Ties between the two countries have long been strained, mainly from lingering animosity in South Korea over Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.
They also have a long-running feud over the islets, located about the same distance from both the shores of countries, called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. The rocky outcrops are situated near fertile fishing grounds and possible maritime deposits of potentially lucrative natural gas hydrate.
The two are also expected to discuss how to cooperate with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration to move forward stalled multilateral talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions, as well as aiding war-torn Afghanistan.
Aso and Lee will likely discuss cooperation in space technology. In October, South Korea's space agency chose Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd as a preferred bidder to launch its satellite, making it a step towards Japan's first commercial launch by its domestic H2-A rocket.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Sanjeev Miglani)
