BERLIN (AFP) - The United States will take in more refugees worldwide over the next two years, US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged Sunday, including 10,000 Syrian asylum-seekers in 2016.

"We will now go up to 85,000 with at least 10,000 over the next year in Syria specifically. And in the next fiscal year we will target 100,000," he said.

In the fiscal year ending September 2015, the world's biggest economy took in 70,000 refugees.

With the figures being dwarfed by the up to 1 million Syrian refugees Germany is expecting to take in this year alone, Washington has been criticised for failing to do more.

Kerry said the US "would like to take more". However it was hamstrung by security regulations put in place after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

"Post-9-11 we have new laws, background checks and that takes longer than we like but we can't cut corners," he said.