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Mr Annan's plan to end the country's conflict has been overshadowed by international revulsion at Friday's massacre in the Houla region.

Mr Annan called the massacre "an appalling moment with profound consequences".

Survivors have told the BBC of their shock and fear as regime forces entered their homes and killed their families.

Mr Annan said the Syrian government has to take "bold steps" to show it is serious about peace.

He said his "message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone with a gun".

On Monday Mr Annan held talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and the head of the UN observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood.

Under Mr Annan's plan, both sides were to stop fighting on 12 April ahead of the deployment of monitors, and the government was to withdraw tanks and forces from civilian areas.

Mr Annan will be pressing Mr Assad to make good on those earlier promises, the BBC's Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon reports.

Much will depend on the position taken by Syria's main international ally and diplomatic protector, Russia, our correspondent adds.
A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition"s Shaam News Network shows hundreds of locals around a UN vehicle on 26 May, 2012 UN observers were able to reach Houla and confirm some details of the massacre

Russia, which has twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions backing action against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, said on Monday that both sides bore responsibility for Friday's massacre.

"We are dealing with a situation in which both sides evidently had a hand in the deaths of innocent civilians," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Western leaders have expressed horror at the killings, and the UK, France and US have all begun moves to raise diplomatic pressure on the Assad government.

France is convening another meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria group, which Russia does not take part in.

"The murderous folly of the Damascus regime represents a threat for regional security and its leaders will have to answer for their acts," said President Francois Hollande's office.
'I saw bodies'

Survivors who spoke to the BBC, and the local commander of the Free Syrian Army, said the people who carried out the killings were militiamen - shabbiha - from nearby Alawite villages.

Their accounts cannot be confirmed, but they are consistent with one another, and also with the reports given by activist groups on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the massacres, our correspondent says.

Syrian leaders will be giving Kofi Annan a different account in their talks, he adds.

They still insist that what they admit was a massacre was the work of hundreds of armed rebels who massed in the area, and who carried out the killings in order to derail the peace process and provoke intervention by Nato.
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Taldou, Houla region

The region of Houla, in the west of Syria, comprises several villages and small towns
The village of Taldou lies around 2km south-west of the main town, also called Houla
The area is in the province of Homs, which has seen heavy fighting in recent months
Houla's villages are predominantly Sunni Muslim, but the region is ringed by a number of Alawite villages - the sect of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad

Houla: How a massacre unfolded
Press split on Syria mass killing

Several witnesses said they hid or played dead to survive.

UN observers who visited the village of Taldou where the massacre happened said they had found evidence of shelling from government forces.

They also confirmed that some of the 108 victims - many of whom were children - had been killed by close-range gunfire or knife attacks.

"We were in the house, they went in, the shabbiha and security, they went in with Kalashnikovs and automatic rifles," survivor Rasha Abdul Razaq told the BBC.

"They took us to a room and hit my father on the head with the back of a rifle and shot him straight in the chin."

Of 20 family members and friends in the house at the time, she said only four had survived.

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said he hid in the attic as gunmen took his family outside and shot them.

"I opened the door, and I saw bodies, I couldn't recognise my kids from my brothers. It was indescribable. I have three children, I lost three children,"

India is expected to convey its support for further progress in Myanmar's movement towards full democracy when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday in what is billed as one of the high-points of his landmark visit.

Singh-Suu Kyi meeting in Yangon which will see the pro-democracy icon sticking to protocol and calling on the Indian premier, external affairs minister SM Krishna said that "Suu Kyi is one of the important leaders of Myanmar and it's natural for the Prime Minister to receive her with due courtesy and convey our best wishes for a national reconciliation for a democratic process to blossom in this country".

Asked what more commitments can India make in helping democracy flourish in Myanmar, Krishna said: "who are we to make more commitments to the democratic process in Nay Pyi Taw. This is a free, sovereign country with whom we have diplomatic and other relationships".

The meeting with India-educated 66-year-old Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi will take place a day after Singh's talks with Myanmar President Thein Sein who is credited with initiating a series of political reforms in the last one year.

It speaks volumes of the changed environment in Myanmar that Singh is meeting leaders at opposite ends of the political spectrum, in a break from the past few years when Indian leaders, including former president APJ Abdul Kalam and vice president Hamid Ansari, visited this country but could not meet Suu Kyi who had been under house arrest.

Singh's meeting with Suu Kyi is seen as a clear sign that New Delhi wants a reaffirmation of ties with the democracy activist after facing international criticism in the past for its engagement with Myanmar's former military junta.