The leaders of Spain, France and Germany all arrived in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg on Thursday (September 5) for the two-day Group of Twenty summit.

The gathering, which is being hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a palace outside the city, looked set to focus on the ongoing crisis in Syria, overshadowing planned economic discussions.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi would travel to the summit to push leaders to agree on an international summit aimed at bringing the civil war in Syria to an end.

The rift between U.S. President Barack Obama and Putin over possible military intervention in Syria was talk of the summit even before the official opening ceremony.

Following the failure of British Prime Minister David Cameron to win parliamentary backing for air strikes last week, Washington has been struggling to build an international coalition for action in the absence of a U.N. resolut