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Erdogan, Sarkozy to discuss Middle East in Damascus

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend a quadripartite summit in Damascus this week with French, Syrian and Qatari leaders convening to discuss Lebanon and the situation in the Middle East, Turkish officials said yesterday.

Erdogan had earlier announced that he would visit Damascus on Sept. 4 for a working visit, coinciding with a landmark trip by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sept. 3-4 to the Syrian capital. News reports in the Arab media said Paris was the sponsor of the meeting. Emir of Qatar Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani and the president of host country Syria, Bashar Assad, will also attend the talks, which will review the situation in Lebanon and the Syrian-Israeli peace talks, currently mediated by Turkey, government spokesman Cemil Cicek confirmed after a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Sources said Assad, a personal friend of Erdogan, wanted the Turkish prime minister to be part of the talks because of his contributions to peace efforts in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan is expected to accompany Erdogan in Damascus. Syria and Israel announced in May that they were holding indirect peace talks mediated by Turkey. Despite having held several rounds of talks so far, a process of direct talks seems unlikely to start soon.

Sarkozy's visit to Damascus is another step the French leader is taking toward normalizing ties with Syria and bringing Damascus back into the international fold by reversing a policy of exclusion that has in recent years alienated the country from the West. Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, was the first Western leader to reward the Syrians by welcoming Assad to the launch of a new Mediterranean Union in France and as a guest of honor at the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris last month.

Qatar is the holder of the term presidency of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Syria is the term president of the Arab League. Turkey is a member of none of the organizations but is preparing to sign a strategic dialogue document with the Gulf Cooperation Council today in Jeddah. The document will be signed during a visit by Babacan to Jeddah. Turkey has also been invited to attend Arab League meetings although it is not a member of the group, and diplomatic sources say efforts are under way to establish an institutional relationship between Ankara and the Arab League.

Turkish diplomats say the invitation for Turkey to attend the talks confirm Ankara's standing as a bridge between the East and the West and added that Erdogan has been invited because Turkey is trusted by both sides. Though the main agenda is the Middle East, the Damascus talks are also expected to touch on the situation in the Caucasus after the brief Georgian-Russian war in August, following a Georgian offensive in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Erdogan is also expected to have bilateral talks with leaders attending the quadripartite summit, though no details were immediately available. Erdogan and Sarkozy rarely meet, and relations between Turkey and France are tense over staunch French opposition to Turkey's membership in the EU. Cicek said he hoped progress in Turkey's accession process would also be discussed in Damascus.

Before flying to Jeddah, Babacan will host Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today in İstanbul for talks on the situation in the Caucasus. After attending a foreign ministerial meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah, Babacan will head to Damascus to attend the quadripartite summit on the Middle East there.