SEOUL (Kyodo) Foreign Ministry officials secretly met this week with Kim Hyon Hui, a former North Korean agent who was convicted of the 1987 downing of a South Korean jetliner, Japanese and South Korean government sources said Thursday.

The meeting, held at the request of the Japanese government, happened Tuesday afternoon and lasted about two hours, according to the sources.

In the meeting, which Japanese police officials also attended, Kim was believed to have reiterated about what she had heard about Japanese nationals abducted from Japan to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.