The European Union and Russia must overcome their differences on the crisis in Syria to prevent all-out civil war, the EU president said Monday after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The European Union and Russia must overcome their differences on the crisis in Syria to prevent all-out civil war, the EU president said Monday after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Herman Van Rompuy, who met Putin alongside EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, admitted after the talks in Saint Petersburg that the EU and Russia "might have some divergent assessments" of the situation in Syria.

But he said they agreed that implementing UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan was the only way forward in a situation that risks developing into full-scale civil war.
"We fully agree that the Annan plan as a whole provides the best opportunity to break the cycle of violence in Syria, avoiding a civil war and finding a peaceful, lasting solution," Van Rompuy said.

"We need to combine our efforts in order for this to happen and to find common messages on which we agree," he added.
"We need to walk towards an immediate stop of all forms of violence in Syria and towards a process of political transition."