Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has met with his Chinese counterpart amid a row over the detention of a Rio Tinto executive in China, an Australian diplomat said Thursday.
Smith "had a conversation" with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in the Thai resort island of Phuket, the diplomat told AFP.
He would not give details of the discussions.
But Smith told Australian state radio ahead of this week's meetings he would raise the detention of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, an Australian passport holder, if he got the chance to meet with Yang.
It was the highest diplomatic contact between Australia and China since Chinese authorities arrested Hu, the Australian head of Rio Tinto's Shanghai office, and three local staff earlier this month.
They were accused of bribery and other illegal means to gather state secrets.
Smith and Yang attended a series of meetings in Phuket, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, Asia's biggest security dialogue, that ended on Thursday.
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