BUSAN, South Korea (AP)--The United States pressed Japan Nov. 16 to speedily open its market to U.S. beef imports in a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, a senior Japanese official said.

Japan's ban on beef imports was the only sticking point in Foreign Minister Taro Aso's bilateral meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the hall where meetings among officials from 21 Asia Pacific region economies are being held in this South Korean port city.

Tokyo has rebuffed Washington's demands to ease its terms for lifting a ban on U.S. beef imports, imposed two years ago due to fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Japan was the United States' largest overseas market for beef before the ban.

Japanese Foreign Ministry official Hajime Hayashi said the 40-minute meeting, Aso's first with Rice since becoming foreign minister last month, was otherwise cordial.

Both sides agreed on other issues such as the importance of resolving North Korea's nuclear arms problem through the six-party talks, he told reporters at a hotel.

Aso told Rice that public hearings on the beef issue were being held and that the Japanese government will reach a decision later this month.

Both sides agreed on the importance of continuing talks and Aso will visit Washington, D.C., next month, Hayashi said.

Taiwan's Economic Minister Ho Mei-yueh said her delegation also discussed lifting the island's ban on American beef during talks with their U.S. counterparts. But further tests needed to be carried out to make sure the U.S. beef was safe, Ho said.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is also called BSE. People who have eaten specific parts of infected cattle can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder that has killed more than 150 people, mostly in Britain in the 1990s.