By Jack Kim and Alister Bull
SEOUL, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Last-minute negotiations on saving a faltering free trade deal between the United States and South Korea were taking place on Thursday, with trade officials leaving the final haggling to their leaders, officials said.
U.S. President Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung-bak, were meeting in Seoul on the sidelines of a G20 summit, with the long-delayed FTA expected to dominate their discussions.
Obama and Lee set a deadline earlier this year of resolving remaining concerns by the G20 summit.
Trade officials are tight-lipped about the fate of the deal, refusing to say if the drawn out negotiations between working level officials had resolved outstanding issues on beef and autos.
They have left the final negotiating, which is believed to be stuck on the issue of autos, to their presidents.
"As we have said previously, if we can reach the standard for a fair trade agreement that the president has set out on particularly autos, we will move forward. We hope to continue making progress," a White House official said.
A U.S. business source in Seoul for the G20 summit said that South Korean Ambassador Han had indicated that negotiators had gotten as far as they could with the talks and had now escalated the decision to the two presidents. The business source was not directly involved in the discussions.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a senior government official as saying things were looking very difficult.
"We can't rule out the possibility that we won't reach a complete agreement today and will have to continue discussions," said the official.
A South Korean official refused to comment on whether Minister for Trade Kim Jong-hoon and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk met at all on Thursday.
Lee and Obama agreed last week in a telephone call that it would be in their countries' interests to conclude the trade deal soon, so their assemblies can enact it into law.
The deal, which was signed in 2007, has been criticised in the United States for not doing enough to open South Korean markets to U.S. cars and beef.
A failure to resolve differences could embarrass Obama who, coming off a mid-term election setback last week, hoped to advance the pact and send a signal on U.S. commitment to greater trade.
But many of Obama's fellow Democrats are demanding substantial changes to the pact, especially in the auto provisions, to open Korea's market to more American exports while protecting American workers against a surge in imports.
South Korea signed a free trade agreement with the European Union last month, putting pressure on Washington to conclude a deal with Seoul.
Some South Korean media had reported Washington was dropping the beef issue to win concessions from Seoul on autos.
Washington has said South Korea's auto standards discriminate against American cars and act as non-tariff barriers, keeping their market share at less than 1 percent. (Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Alex Richardson)