French President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to arrive Wednesday in Damascus, which will host a summit with the participation of France, Syria, Turkey, and Qatar.


The French leader's two-day trip is the latest step towards normalizing relations that were frozen after the 2005 murder of Lebanon's former premier Rafiq Hariri, a close friend of Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy will join a four-way summit on Middle East peace with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and regional mediators Turkey and Qatar, officials said

The Sept. 4 meeting will bring Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan together with Assad, Sarkozy and Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

France currently holds the presidency of the European Union, while Syria heads the Council of the Arab League and Qatar is the current chair of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The summit would focus on the Turkey-mediated indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel.

Turkey has been mediating indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria. The fourth round of talks ended in July. Israel and Syria launched peace talks in May, after an eight-year freeze, but have not yet agreed to hold face-to-face negotiations.

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The first visit by a Western head of state in five years, it is seen at home as a diplomatic victory for Assad, six weeks after he made a comeback on the world stage with a high-profile trip to Paris.

Analysts also see the French leaders trip as a chance for Syria to improve its relations with the United States, which continues to blacklist Damascus as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Syria has had strained ties with both France and the United States since Hariri’s assassination in a massive Beirut car bombing.

Paris and Washington, among others, accused Syria of orchestrating the attack, one of a string targeting its critics in Lebanon.

Syria repeatedly denied the charge but two months later withdrew its troops from Lebanon, ending three decades of domination of its small neighbor.

Paris moved last year to start repairing ties with Syria, but backpedaled, accusing Damascus of blocking the election of a new Lebanese president, fuelling a months-long political crisis.

The election of Lebanese President Michel Sleiman in May -- followed by the announcement that Lebanon and Syria would establish diplomatic relations for the first time -- paved the way for a full normalization of relations.