Premature to speak on asylum for Assad: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday it was premature to say whether Moscow would grant asylum to embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who had made “many mistakes.”

“You know I believe that it is premature to discuss this,” Mr Putin said in the second half of a two-part interview with German mass circulation daily Bild.

“We gave asylum to Mr Snowden, it was more difficult than giving it to Assad,” he said, referring to fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, granted asylum in Russia in 2013.

“First one needs to give the Syrian people an opportunity to have their say,” Mr Putin said, according to a Russian-language transcript of the interview published by the Kremlin.

“And I assure you that if this is done in a democratic way, then maybe he won’t have to go anywhere. And it does not matter whether he is President or not.”