Abe makes N Korean abductions a personal crusade
The kidnapping of ordinary people by North Korean agents across the region in the 1970s and 1980s is one of the more chilling chapters in the twisted history of the world's last Stalinist state.
Agents, sometimes posing as Japanese businessmen, would track targets on the streets of Japan, South Korea and even Macau. Their prey would be snatched, spirited onto North Korean intelligence ships and packed off to Pyongyang, eventually being forced to serve the regime as translators or cultural instructors.
One defector, Kim Hyun-hee, told a stunned Japanese press conference in 1988 how she had been taught to impersonate a Japanese citizen by a Japanese abductee. Kim used the knowledge as a North Korean agent involved in the 1987 bombing of Korean Airlines flight 858 that killed all 115 people on board.
If that all seems a long time ago, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is making sure the wider issue of the abductions is very much alive.
In Cebu during last weekend's regional leaders' meetings as part of the East Asia Summit, Mr Abe kept the issue near the top of his agenda in talks with virtually every leader he met.
It has long been an issue close to Mr Abe's political heart, an emotional saga that played a significant part in his rise to prominence in the otherwise grey ranks of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Under his urging, Tokyo and Pyongyang have been arguing about the number of nationals abducted, and their fates.
Japan has an official list of 17 people, five of whom have been repatriated. North Korea has previously acknowledged 13 abductions. Japan is still demanding the return of all surviving victims, and a full accounting of the fate of all others on its list.
One of the abductees Tokyo insists is still alive is Megumi Yokota. Now 42, she was just 13 when she was grabbed on her way home from school in 1978.
About the same time, three young women - two locals and a Thai - disappeared from Macau after a brief friendship with a mysterious Japanese man. Efforts by their families and the Thai government to get co-operation from Macau, Beijing and Pyongyang have yielded little.
Last weekend Mr Abe scored a significant diplomatic victory as the leaders' issued formal statements that demanded North Korea address 'humanitarian concerns of the international community'. Japanese officials said the reference was diplomatic code for the abductions issue.
They also said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had pledged Beijing's 'necessary co-operation' in leaning on Pyongyang.
Mr Abe has raised the issue in previous meetings with mainland officials. Diplomatic sources said China has always politely acknowledged his concerns but preferred to concentrate on other, more pressing, issues.
It is far from a one-way street for Mr Abe on the issue. 'We know it is a big issue for him, so that is respected, but it is fair to say that everyone is much more keen to concentrate on the nuclear crisis,' one Asean diplomat said.
Similarly, the leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations rejected a Japanese push to use the strongest possible language, avoiding anything Pyongyang would see as 'animosity'.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun was also keen to bat away calls from Mr Abe to include the issue in the six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Mr Abe's insistence on answers from North Korea over the fate of those still missing is widely believed to have played a key part in Pyongyang's repeated attempts to have Japan kicked out of the six-party process.
Despite the troubles, there is little doubt he has certainly succeeded in raising the profile of the issue. Japanese officials say Mr Abe is keen to build further momentum in coming months, an effort that could boost his troubled domestic popularity ratings.
After 30 years, the odds suggest he faces an uphill battle in solving one of the region's most enduring mysteries.
