U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are heading for a face-to-face showdown as major powers prepare for a weekend conference in Geneva over the Syrian Crisis

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are heading for a face-to-face showdown as major powers prepare for a weekend conference in Geneva over the Syrian Crisis.

Clinton and Lavrov will meet in St. Petersburg late on Friday on the eve of the conference in Geneva in a bid to iron out differences over the transition plan being pushed by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan. U.S. officials are pushing forwards with this plan because it says won’t allow Syrian President Bashar Assad to “remain in power”, but Russia insists that outsiders cannot impose a solution on Syria.