"We're BFFs forever," Prime Minister John Key declared at his meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

An unintentional Australian slight against New Zealand has been forgiven, with Prime Minister John Key declaring Malcolm Turnbull is his "BFF forever" - which translates to "best friend forever forever".

The Australian prime minister quickly responded "yes, we are", smoothing over a few doubtful days after Turnbull declared Australia's closest bond was with the United Kingdom.

Key and Turnbull met in Laos on Wednesday ahead of the East Asia Summit (EAS) on Thursday.

John Key and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on one of their many friendly outings.

Turnbull seemed thrilled to be reunited with Key, saying several times that it was great to see him.

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POOL John Key has forgiven Malcolm Turnbull for his slight.

Key's "BFF forever" comment came about after he joked that the media had been giving him a hard time in the three days since Turnbull's remarks about his country's friendship with the UK.

"There couldn't be two countries with closer bonds than Australia and Britain," Turnbull tweeted after meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the G20 summit in China.

There couldn't be two countries with closer bonds than Australia & Britain. Much to discuss with Prime Minister May pic.twitter.com/qNhFyIR0YN — Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) September 5, 2016

Key was keen to chat with Turnbull about the issues discussed at G20, which included protectionism around trade.

"The way I tried to sum it up best was to say you've got to get across the point that protectionism is not a ladder to get you out of the slow growth trap, in fact, it's a shovel to dig it deeper and make the problem more intractable," Turnbull said.

Following the meeting, Key said New Zealand and Australia had fought hard to open up world markets and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement was a big step towards that.

Protectionism in response to economic downturn wasn't a good move and "certainly doesn't help New Zealand," he said.

"As I'm fond of saying, we don't make money selling things to each other."

Earlier on Wednesday, Key met with Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, where the pair discussed opportunities to develop Myanmar's food sector.

Key would meet with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday.

He said he had no intentions of "holding punches back" over why former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is the best person for the role of United Nations Secretary-General, despite Russian opposition.

"In fairness to the Russians, they've been quite upfront about their position. They believe it's an east European's chance ... Their tactics have been quite clear for everyone to see."

"I'm not sure we're going to change the Russian perspective, but we are going to put on the record that we think she's the right person and should be considered," he said.

On Thursday, Key expected the biggest issue facing the summit leaders to be the "unpredictability" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on the back of missile launches earlier in the week.

"It's not clear, if we wanted to rein him in, just how we'd do that," Key said.

"We don't know what he's going to do next, his behaviour and the way he's treated people ... Not only is it abhorrent, but it's barbaric."

On Thursday night, Key leaves Vientiane, heading straight to the Federated States of Micronesia for the Pacific Islands Forum.

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