MOSCOW: Moscow did not ask Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, nor did it offer him political asylum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. 'In both cases, the answer is: 'No',' Lavrov told his annual news conference. 'This is untrue... No one asked about political asylum, and no one offered anything of the kind.' Lavrov also said Islamic State militants were building up influence in Afghanistan. On a different topic, he also said Moscow does not want to take back refugees who crossed into Norway from Russia. 'The talk is about people who arrived in Russia with a purpose of either to work in Russia or to visit relatives. They had not declared their (true) purpose of visit as transit to Norway,' Lavrov told his annual news conference. 'This means that they had deliberately stated false data about the purpose of their visit to the Russian Federation. This is why we do not want to admit these people back to Russia.' No proof Russian air strikes in Syria killed civilians