Annan Wants New Strategy to End Syria Conflict Against the backdrop of a new massacre in Syria, international envoy Kofi Annan on Thursday will propose tasking a group of world powers and key regional players including Iran to come up with a strategy to end the 15-month conflict, U.N. diplomats said. Annan will present the United Nations with a plan for creating a "contact group" whose final proposal must be acceptable to Syria's allies Russia and China, which have blocked all U.N. action, as well as the U.S. and its European allies, who insist that President Bashar Assad must go, they said. There has also been talk about a meeting of key world leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Mexico later this month to discuss the growing crisis in Syria and possible next steps, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations have been private. "It's time for all of us to turn our attention to an orderly transition of power in Syria that would pave the way for democratic, tolerant, pluralistic future," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters Wednesday before leaving Azerbaijan for Turkey. The violence in Syria has grown increasingly chaotic in recent months, and it is difficult to assign blame for much of the bloodshed. The opposition blames government forces and militias that support them known as shabihas while the government blames rebels and "armed terrorist groups." At the U.N., diplomats are increasingly concerned that the country is spiraling toward civil war. Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, will give his latest assessment of the Syrian conflict at an open meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday morning along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, and a representative of U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. Annan will then brief the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors Thursday afternoon and have dinner with ambassadors from the council's five permanent nations - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France, a council diplomat said. Reports by Syrian activists of a surge of bloodshed in the central Hama province late Wednesday, with at least 23 people killed - and possibly many more - are bound to reinforce the growing belief that Annan's six-point peace plan is unraveling. The violence comes on the heels of a horrific massacre on May 25 and 26 in Houla, a cluster of villages in the central Homs province, which left over 100 dead including many women and children gunned down in their homes. U.N. investigators blamed pro-government gunmen for at least some of the killings but the Syrian regime denied responsibility and blamed rebels for the attacks. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice warned last week that the worst but most probable scenario in Syria is a failure of Annan's peace plan and a spreading conflict that creates "a major crisis" not only in Syria but also region-wide. To avoid this, Rice urged Syria to implement the plan and if it doesn't she said the Security Council should set aside its differences and increase the pressure on Syria with sanctions. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner followed up Wednesday, warning Syria that U.N. sanctions may be near and calling for the world to exert "maximum financial pressure" on Assad's government.