(Updates with quote from Chinese Foreign Ministry, arrest)
By David Alexander
LIMA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush held talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program with Chinese leader Hu Jintao on Friday, the first in a series of meetings U.S. officials hope will lead to a renewal of six-party talks by early December.
The meeting came ahead of the annual Asia-Pacific economic summit as leaders of 21 countries representing half the world's trade gathered in Peru amid the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
Hundreds of protesters chanted anti-Bush slogans in a downtown square as the U.S. president, who leaves office in January, arrived in Peru.
The protests were peaceful but police later arrested and held for questioning a woman who was carrying a knife near the waterfront hotel where Bush is staying and where he met with the Chinese president.
Bush and Hu shook hands at the end of a flag-draped hallway in the hotel before retiring behind closed doors for talks.
"The leaders ... discussed the importance of formalizing the verification protocol of the six-party talks, which as part of 'action-for-action' will eventually lead to a denuclearized peninsula," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said later.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Hu expressed hope that trade and investment protectionism would not become a bigger impediment to China-U.S. trade.
"With the current financial crisis, economic and financial cooperation is important in dealing with the crisis and limiting damage to the economies of both countries and the world," Liu told reporters of Hu's stance in the meeting.
RESUMING SIX-PARTY TALKS
Bush planned to meet three other participants in the six-party talks over the weekend. He holds talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Saturday morning and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the afternoon.
Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the White House National Security Council, said the U.S. goal for the talks was to reach an agreement to resume six-party talks in early December. China hosts the talks, which include Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and the United States.
"Our primary goal is to get back to the negotiating table in Beijing," Wilder told reporters traveling with Bush.
"We need to put in place in the six-party context the verification principles that we have worked out, to a certain extent bilaterally, with the North Koreans. We need that to be memorialized and codified at a six-party meeting," he said.
In a deal worked out in 2005, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives. Pyongyang, which has tested a nuclear device, began disabling some of its nuclear capability last year but did not hand over a promised list of its nuclear arms program until this summer.
The agreement almost collapsed in late summer because the United States was slow in removing North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, saying it first wanted to agree on a procedure to verify Pyongyang's statements about its nuclear program. North Korea began to reverse work it had carried out on disabling its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
The United States took North Korea off the blacklist in October after the two agreed on a procedure for verifying the nuclear program and Pyongyang resumed dismantling its Yongbyon plant, which makes weapons-grade plutonium. The verification steps still must be formally agreed on by the six-party process.
Bush and Hu also talked about the global financial crisis.
"President Bush was pleased to see President Hu just a week after the successful G20 Summit in Washington," Perino said. "The two leaders continued their conversation about the global financial situation, the need to reject protectionism and the work ahead for a successful framework agreement for the Doha round this year."
One of Bush's primary objectives at APEC is to expand global commitment to financial reforms and economic principles agreed on at last week's Washington summit of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries, said Daniel Price, Bush's adviser on international economic affairs.
The principles commit the participants to maintain open markets and resist an impulse to put up trade barriers, a move that could exacerbate the economic crisis. (Additional reporting by Doug Palmer, Chris Buckley and Diego Ore; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)