David Cameron is to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to break the international deadlock on Syria.
The Prime Minister said he would be meeting Mr Putin in Downing Street on Sunday ahead of next week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
He told MPs at Prime Minister's Questions: "We should use the G8 to try to bring pressure on all sides to bring about what we all want, which is a peace conference, a peace process and a move towards a transitional government in Syria."
Tensions with Moscow over the conflict in Syria increased last month when Britain and France secured the lifting of the EU arms embargo to block the supply of weapons to the rebels.
The Russians responded by announcing they would go ahead with the supply of sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to the regime of President Bashar al Assad to deter "hotheads" from entering the conflict.
Mr Cameron strongly defended the ending of the European Union embargo, saying it was designed to put pressure on the regime to attend planned peace talks in Geneva brokered by Russia and the United States.
Meanwhile, Sunni Muslim insurgents killed about 60 Shi'ite Muslims in a rebel-held eastern Syrian town where forces loyal to Assad's regime had been trying to recruit and arm fighters for his cause.
The attack was another sign of how a revolt that began more than two years ago with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule is descending into sectarian bloodshed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group that has reported abuses on both sides of the conflict, put the death toll in Tuesday's attack at 60, saying most victims were pro-Assad Shi'ite militiamen. Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect is rooted in Shi'ite Islam. Most rebels are Sunnis.
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