Putin: Syria, Assad ready for elections

BEIRUT - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready to hold parliamentary elections and share power with a "healthy opposition" in order to end the country's devastating civil war.

Russia has been a key backer of Assad during the four-year-old conflict, which has killed 250,000 people, displaced millions and empowered the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Putin's remarks come amid a burst of diplomacy over the war, as well as concern in Washington that Russia is increasing its military support to the Syrian government.

Speaking in the eastern port city of Vladivostok, Putin said that countering "terrorism" in Syria - a term used by Assad's government to describe rebels - "should go together with a certain political process" to halt the conflict.

"And the Syrian president, by the way, agrees with that, all the way down to holding early elections, let's say, to the parliament, establishing contacts with the so-called healthy opposition, bringing them into governing," the Russian leader said.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian officials on Putin's remarks. And the Russian president did not specify any groups among Syria's fragmented and weak opposition that would share power with Assad.

Most of Assad's Syrian opponents demand the leader's ouster as part of a solution to the war. Russia and Iran, also a backer of Assad, reject this.

Meanwhile, officials in Washington have expressed concern over unverified reports of increasing Russian military support to Assad's forces, including possible troop deployments. This week, images posted to a Twitter account linked to Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate purported to show advanced aircraft, including a Russian fighter jet and drone, flying over the northwestern province of Idlib.

Russia operates a naval base on Syria's coast and has provided the Assad government with vital military and logistical support for fighting the rebellion.

"Any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose - whether it is in the form of military personnel, aircraft supplies, weapons, or funding - is both destabilizing and counterproductive," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.

The United States is leading a coalition that is carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State at its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Russia does not support the coalition's actions in Syria because U.S. officials do not coordinate attacks with the Assad government.

Last month, the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition said after a meeting in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the "Russian leadership isn't clinging to Bashar Assad."