Assad exit key to ending refugee crisis: Kerry

Kerry's emphasis on Saturday on a negotiated Assad departure without "a specific date" followed the first top-level talks between US and Russia military chiefs since NATO froze contacts last year over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.

Signs of a Russian military buildup in Syria, Moscow's closest Middle East ally, have followed battlefield setbacks inflicted by diverse rebel groups on Assad's forces. Assad's Alawite sect has its heartland in Syria's coastal area of Latakia.

Rebel al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front insurgents executed 71 of Assad's troops since capturing an airport in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib 10 days ago, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

'Prepared to negotiate'

"We're prepared to negotiate. Is Assad prepared to negotiate, really negotiate? Is Russia prepared to bring him to the table?" said Kerry, speaking after visiting British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in London on Saturday.

"That is what we're looking for and we hope Russia and Iran, and any other countries with influence, will help to bring about that, because that's what is preventing this crisis from ending," Kerry said.

"I just know that the people of Syria have already spoken with their feet. They're leaving Syria," said Kerry, referring to refugees who since 2011 have fled to Syria's neighbors and more recently toward Europe.

Kerry said Assad and his regime were a "magnet" for opposing jihadist groups, notably "Islamic State" (IS) with its recruited foreign fighters.

Kerry also told British Channel 4 television that the solution to the refugee crisis, which had become a "human catastrophe" extending to Europe, lay in addressing the "root cause" of the flight, namely Assad.

Hammond said "Russian engagement" made the situation "more complicated" because of the existing US-led airstrikes against IS inside Syria by a coalition of nations, including Gulf states and Western nations.

An array of secular and Islamist rebels are fighting against Assad, who has been in power since 2000 after the death of his father.

Russian buildup

US sources on Friday said four Russian fighter jets had been sighted at a Latakia air base in Syria, not far from Tartus, where Russia has leased Soviet-era naval base.

On Thursday, commercial satellite intelligence firm AllSource Analysis said its images showed recent arrivals of six Russian battle tanks, 26 armored personnel carriers, helicopters and the construction of a new taxiway.

Latakia has Syria's only functioning international airport beside the international facility in the capital, Damascus, where Assad's regime still holds sway.

Lavrov: Assad's forces 'capable'

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was "no reason" for Russia to avoid cooperation with Assad in fighting IS, because his forces were the "most capable ground force fighting terrorism."

"Rejecting such a possibility, ignoring the capability of the Syrian army as a partner and ally in the fight against the IS means sacrificing security of the entire region for political or geopolitical intentions and calculations," Lavrov said.

Covert deployment?

Russian online newspaper "Gazeta.ru" said some Russian soldiers might be headed to Syria in covert deployments. It quoted a Moscow campaigner for Russian military families as saying that soldiers were being sent south without being told of their destinations.

"Relatives were afraid that they are being sent to Ukraine or Syria," Valentina Melnikova told the radio station Echo of Moscow.

Russia's close ties with Syria date back to the Soviet era when Assad's late father, Hafez al-Assad, was a Soviet ally.

Assad is also backed by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which are Israel's bitter enemies.

ipj/cmk (AFP, dpa, Reuters, AP)