The parents of a Japanese girl kidnapped by North Korea in 1977 have met their granddaughter in Mongolia, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

The parents of Megumi Yokota, who the North claims committed suicide in 1994, met her daughter, Kim Eun Gyong, 26, in Ulan Bator over five days last week. Yokota’s father Shigeru, 81, and mother Sakie, 78, had previously refused to meet Kim, whose father is an abducted South Korean, because they would not allow the North to use the meeting as an opportunity to “prove” that their daughter is dead.

During the meeting Kim told her grandparents