French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived here on Wednesday for a two-day official visit after a freeze of political contacts for more than three years.
Sarkozy, accompanied by his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, was welcomed by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem and other officials at the Damascus international airport, live footage of the state-owned Syrian television showed.
The French president immediately headed to the presidential palace on a hilltop in Damascus for a formal welcoming ceremony, which would be followed by a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
Sarkozy, the first head of state of the West to visit Syria in years, would discuss with Assad on bilateral relations and means of developing them in all fields, according to the official SANA news agency on Tuesday.
The latest regional and international developments, the peace process and the indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel under Turkish mediation would also be discussed, added the report.
During Sarkozy's stay, Assad would host a four-way summit which also includes Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
The summit was widely seen of importance, as France holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, Syria similarly takes the rotating chairmanship of the Arab League, and Qatar currently heads the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
France froze high-level official contacts with Syria shortly after the assassination of former Lebanese Rafik Hariri in 2005 and led international pressure against Syria and efforts for the creation of a UN investigation and a UN-backed tribunal on suspects of the Hariri case.
But Syria's role in supporting reconciliation in Lebanon and its indirect peace talks with Israel contributed to a shift of France's policy towards Damascus and helped facilitate Sarkozy's historic trip, which would further pull Damascus out of an international isolation it suffers for years.
Source:Xinhua
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