A Little Lovin' for the Beloved Leader?

[Evel_Penivel]

One Thai woman kidnapped by North Korea. Just wonder how many thousands have disappeared into the Gulf States.

 

Pyongyang diplomat denies North Korea holds missing Thai woman

 

^By RUNGRAWEE C. PINYORAT=

^Associated Press Writer=

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) Thailand's Foreign Ministry said

Tuesday that North Korea's top diplomat here has denied that a Thai women alleged to have been kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents in 1978 has ever lived in the isolated communist state.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said the denial was given by Kim Chol Nam, North Korea's charge d'affaires, when he came to the ministry Tuesday for talks on the subject.

Kim had been called to discuss the case of Anocha Panjoy,

allegedly abducted from a bathhouse in Macau, then a Portuguese colony.

The source of the information about her was U.S. Army deserter Robert Jenkins, who abandoned his unit and fled to North Korea in 1965. He went to Japan in 2004 and turned himself in to American authorities.

His story gained credibility Monday when members of Anocha's family came to the Foreign Ministry on Monday to confirm that she disappeared at the time and place cited by Jenkins in his autobiography, recently published in Japan, and in an interview with the US television network CBS.

The Foreign Ministry agreed to call in the North Korean envoy after meeting with the family members. A senior ministry official, Nopadol Gunavibool, met with North Korea's Kim for an hour Tuesday to discuss the matter.

``The charge d'affaires (Kim) said that the initial

investigation shows that there is no evidence that the person named Anocha is living in North Korea,'' said Sihasak.

Pyongyang did not explain what sort of investigation it conducted.

Sihasak told reporters that ``Thailand has asked North Korea to investigate further and establish the facts concerning this case.''

Thailand wants to ascertain if Anocha is the same person that was mentioned by Jenkins, Sihasak said.

Thailand gave evidence concerning Anocha, including her house registration and photographs, received from her elder brother, to the North Korean envoy, he said.

Sihasak added that Thailand also is seeking assistance from the Japanese government to get information on Anocha first hand from Jenkins, who is currently in Japan's Niigata prefecture.

North Korea in 2002 acknowledged kidnapping about a dozen Japanese citizens to help train spies. One of the kidnapped women, Hitomi Soga, became Jenkins' wife. But Pyongyang has not acknowledged kidnapping the nationals of other countries.

Members of a Japan-based organization, the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, are scheduled to come to Thailand on Wednesday and meet with Anocha's family in the northern province of Chiang Mai. The group has claimed that North Korea had foreign abductees from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Romania and Lebanon.