In the 10 months since the exposure of this kidnapping case, Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkol has written two letters to his North Korean counterpart Paek Nam Sun, demanding full accountability for the missing Thai citizen. But it has been all in vain.

In its reply to the first letter, Pyongyang simply dismissed the whole story as groundless. The second letter remains unanswered. In it, Kantathi mentioned the meeting he had with members of Anocha's family, including her brother, Sukham, and circumstantial evidence from them that shows that she could indeed have been abducted as stated in the book by Charles Jenkins. A US military deserter who lived in North Korea for almost 40 years, Jenkins now lives on Sado Island, off the coast of Japan's Niigata prefecture.

At last week's Asean Regional Forum meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Kantathi and Paek met face-to-face for the first time to discuss the Anocha affair. North Korea was again persistent in dismissing the report was groundless. According to a source who was present at the meeting, Paek told Kantathi that after a thorough country-wide search for Anocha, the North Korean government still did not have any information about her. Therefore, as far as Pyongyang was concerned, the case was closed because there was no such person.

Paek reiterated further that Anocha's disappearance was fabricated by Jenkins for propaganda purposes. Indeed, this could well have been the content of a reply to Kantathi's second letter.

In response, the source said Kantathi urged the North Korean side not to close the case but to intensify the search and conduct it more thoroughly this time. He then proposed forming a joint Thai-North Korean working group of senior-level officials. North Korea agreed to study the proposal.

Any progress coming from the joint working group would be better accepted than a one-sided undertaking and judgement, as North Korea has done so far. For instance, if Anocha is located and is still alive, this would allow her to reunite with her family. Whether she then decides to return to Thailand or stay in North Korea would be her decision alone. That should be the way to go.

For the time being, Thailand is deliberately playing down the Anocha affair, saying simply that she went missing in North Korea. Thailand does not want to harm its good ties with North Korea, which celebrated the 30th anniversary last year. North Korea was the first communist country with which Thailand established diplomatic ties, in May 1975.

At last week's ARF meeting, Thailand demonstrated to North Korea that it had its own thinking when it came to the Anocha affair, a position that surprised Japan. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso was blunt in raising the issue of citizens abducted by North Korea at the forum. He urged North Korea to cooperate in the search for abducted foreigners, which he emphasised included Thai citizens, on humanitarian grounds.

In response, Kantathi referred to the issue as one of a missing Thai citizen in North Korea. He deliberately avoided the word "abduction", used by Japan, for good reason. He hopes that by treating the Anocha affair as a bilateral issue, Thailand and North Korea can solve it amicably.

In the past several months, Japan has intensified its diplomatic efforts to raise the profile of abductions by North Korea. Recently, Tokyo succeeded in putting forward a UN resolution condemning North Korea's grotesque violations of human rights, including abductions.

According to Jenkins, several nationalities including Malaysians and Filipinos were kidnapped by Pyongyang's intelligence agency in 1978.

Early this year, Kantathi despatched a senior Thai official to Tokyo to learn from Japanese experts who handled this issue with North Korea. In May, Kantathi visited Japan and held talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe and also with the experts, who advised him on ways to deal successfully with North Korea, including persistence and discussions at the highest level possible.

Thai-North Korea diplomatic ties have taken a dip after Anocha's disappearance came to light last October. Pyongyang's pending requests for visas for its senior officials to Bangkok, including several planned visits, have all been denied. So have several other requests pertaining to the North Korean Embassy's diplomatic operations in Bangkok.

If North Korea agrees to the establishment of a joint working group to search for Anocha, it is possible that the Thai Foreign Ministry might partially lift the visa ban as an incentive for future cooperation.

Kavi Chongkittavorn