A senior official of North Korea's secret police organ directly linked to leader Kim Jong Un met Japan's top diplomat for Asian affairs in a closed-door meeting last month to discuss the abduction issue, diplomatic sources close to Tokyo and Pyongyang said Tuesday.

The North Korean representative and Junichi Ihara, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, apparently held the secret contact around Aug. 21 in Kuala Lumpur, the sources said.

The official belongs to the Ministry of State Security, which is leading North Korea's reinvestigation into the fates of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s following an accord between Tokyo and Pyongyang in May.