Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Tuesday that the first step to solve the Syrian crisis is to give the Syrians an opportunity to have their own word.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Tuesday that the first step to solve the Syrian crisis is to give the Syrians an opportunity to have their own word.

"First one needs to give the Syrian people an opportunity to have their say," Putin said in the second half of a two-part interview with German mass circulation daily Bild.

He said it was too early to talk about granting President Bashar al-Assad an asylum.

"You know I believe that it is premature to discuss this,” Putin said according to a Russian-language transcript of the interview published by the Kremlin.

"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.

"And I assure you that if this is done in a democratic way (if the Syrians say their word), then maybe he won't have to go anywhere. And it does not matter whether he is president or not."

"Assad is not seeking to annihilate his own population. He's fighting those who have come to him with arms," Putin added.

"And if the peaceful population suffers because of that then I think that it is primarily those who are fighting him with arms in their hands and who are helping the armed groups that are responsible for this."

"We are talking about hundreds, thousands of armed people who are fighting ISIL," he said.

"We support both the Assad army and the armed opposition. Some of them have already publicly announced this, some prefer to remain silent but the work is ongoing."