TOKYO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Japan and South Korea to cool tempers in their showdown over contested islands, as part of a wider US effort to defuse rising regional tensions stoked by maritime disputes.
‘‘I raised these issues with both of them,’’ Clinton said Sunday after meeting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan and President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia. She said she told the countries’ leaders ‘‘that their interests really lie in making sure that they lower the temperature and work together in a concerted way to have a calm and restrained approach.’’
Noda did not have bilateral meetings with the leaders of South Korea or China at the summit, only holding brief discussions with Lee and President Hu Jintao of China, with which Japan also has a dispute.
Clinton, who Sunday wrapped up a six-nation, 11-day tour, has tried to douse a diplomatic showdown between US allies Japan and South Korea, as well as conflicts in the South China Sea.