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Bill
Richardson (2nd R) and Eric Schmidt (C) arrive at Beijing airport after
return
from Pyongyang, on January 10, 2013 (AFP, Ed Jones)
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BEIJING —
Google chairman Eric Schmidt told North Korea it will not develop unless it embraces
Internet freedom, he said on Thursday as he returned from a controversial visit
to the communist state with US politician Bill Richardson.
Richardson,
the former US ambassador to the United Nations who led the trip, said he called
on Pyongyang to adopt a moratorium on ballistic missiles and nuclear tests
following the its widely criticised rocket launch last month.
Speaking at
Beijing airport, he said efforts to "strongly urge" North Korea, a
highly secretive and tightly-controlled country, to increase the use of the
Internet were "the main success of the visit".
Schmidt
said he told North Korean officials they should open up the country's Internet
"or they will remain behind".
"As
the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually
isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic
growth and so forth, and it will make it harder for them to catch up
economically," he said.
"Once
the Internet starts, citizens in a country can certainly build on top of it.
The government has to do something. It has to make it possible for people to
use the Internet which the government in North Korea has not yet done."
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Bill
Richardson (C, L) and Eric Schmidt (C, R) visit the Grand People's
Study House
in Pyongyang, on January 9, 2013 (KCNA via KNS/AFP)
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Richardson,
also a former governor of New Mexico, said: "We strongly urged the North
Koreans to proceed with a moratorium on ballistic missiles and possible nuclear
test."
The
delegation did not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un but had a "series
of very frank discussions" with officials on "the current level of
tension in the peninsula", he said, adding: "The North Koreans need
to temper their nuclear development."
North Korea
angered the US and others in December by launching a long-range rocket which it
claimed was part of a program to put a scientific satellite into orbit.
Washington and other nations called it a disguised ballistic missile test.
The US
State Department has voiced concern about Richardson's trip, saying it was
ill-timed in the wake of the rocket launch.
The
high-profile delegation visited North Korea's largest library and paid respects
to its late leaders, according to the official Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA).
KCNA, which
described the visitors as a Google delegation, said they went to reading and
lecture rooms at the Grand People's Study House and a mausoleum housing the
bodies of late leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.
"The
members of the delegation paid high tribute to the statues of the peerlessly
great men," it said.
Richardson
has been to North Korea a number of times in the past two decades and has been
involved in negotiating the release of US citizens held in the isolated
country.
During the
latest trip discussions took place on Kenneth Bae, an American of Korean
descent who is being held in North Korea, and Richardson said he had been told
he was "in good health" but did not meet him personally.
Bae was
arrested in November after entering the country as a tourist, according to the
North's official news agency, which said he had admitted committing a crime
against the state.
North Korea
has in the past agreed to hand over detainees to high-profile delegations led
by the likes of former US president Bill Clinton.
Richardson
last visited the North in 2010 when he met its chief nuclear negotiator to try
and ease tensions after the country shelled a South Korean border island.
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