WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush on Thursday thanked Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for opening his country’s market to American beef, a thorny trade dispute that created tension in a tight personal relationship the two leaders used to strengthen bilateral ties.

Japan agreed last week to lift its ban on U.S. beef imports, pending planned inspections of U.S. meat processing plants. The Asian nation imposed the ban over concerns about mad cow disease.

“I think the Japanese people are going to like the taste of U.S. beef,” Bush said of the agreement that gives U.S. ranchers access to a lucrative export market. “As a matter of fact, I had a good slice of U.S. beef last night and you told me you did as well. And you look like you’re feeling pretty good.”

“Very good,” Koizumi replied.

Asserting Japan as an emerging player on the world stage, Koizumi said he and Bush discussed bilateral issues as well as international ones, including Iraq, Afghanistan, poverty and North Korea.

“In the meeting, we discussed not just Japan-U.S. bilateral relations, but numerous challenges that the world community faces today,” Koizumi said.

In welcoming Koizumi to the White House, Bush thanked the prime minister for Japan’s support in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for its help in confronting North Korea about its nuclear weapons ambitions.

“Decades ago our two fathers looked across the Pacific and saw adversaries, uncertainty and war,” Bush told the prime minister at an elaborate arrival ceremony on the South Lawn. “Today their sons look across that same ocean and see friends and opportunity and peace.”

Koizumi said there has been no other world leader besides Bush with whom he has felt so much “heart-to-heart” friendship and trust. Asserting Japan’s desire to enhance its role as a world leader, Koizumi said he and Bush would discuss bilateral issues as well as global challenges.

“I sincerely hope that my visit this time will enable our two countries to continue to cooperate and develop together and, as allies in the international community, make even greater contributions to the numerous challenges in the world community,” said Koizumi, who stopped to shake the hands of Japanese-American children who attend a Japanese language school in Washington.

Bush will fete Koizumi with a gala official dinner, where they will discuss reported North Korean preparations to test-launch a long-range missile and Japan’s support for the U.S. fight against terror. That is all standard fare for the leaders of major allies. The best indicator of how Bush feels about Koizumi will come after the policy discussions and formal gatherings end, when the president treats Koizumi to a tour Friday of the home of the prime minister’s musical hero, Elvis Presley.

“Officially he’s here to see the president but I know the highlight of his visit will be paying his respects to the king,” joked Bush, who once gave Koizumi a juke box.

In concluding their news conference, Koizumi referenced a famous Presley song, saying “Thank you very much, American people, for “Love Me Tender.'”

It is a farewell tour for Koizumi before he steps down in September. The prime minister is a stalwart member of a dwindling group of world leaders willing to stand by the beleaguered president as bloodshed continues in Iraq and anger soars over U.S. foreign policy.

Hundreds of guests on the South Lawn greeted him by waving miniature Japanese and American flags on a clear but muggy summer morning.

Koizumi is seen as having changed the way Japan views itself on the world stage. Japanese troops, once viewed as colonizing aggressors, now stand ready to take a bigger role in regional and global security.

The leaders’ close ties are said to have been forged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Koizumi then began working to transform Japanese foreign policy, often in the face of opposition from those who felt a strong connection with the United States could make Japan a target of terrorists.

Japan’s post-World War II constitution prohibits its military from combat duty in international conflicts. But the country enacted a law after the Sept. 11 attacks to let Japan provide logistical support to coalition forces in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan.

Under another Koizumi law, passed in 2003, Japan was able to send about 600 troops to southern Iraq on a noncombat humanitarian mission. When Tokyo said last week it was withdrawing its ground troops, Koizumi made sure to note the decision was made in consultation with the United States.

`The Japanese defense forces did a really good job when they were in Iraq,” Bush said. “They are able to leave because they did such a good job, and they’re able to leave because they did such a good job and now the Iraqis are running the province in which the Japanese forces used to be.”