The meeting brought French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Damascus where they and the Syrian president discussed the ongoing Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations mediated by Turkey, as well as conditions in Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur and the Iranian-West nuclear standoff.

Arab diplomats said the four leaders divided their roles and tasks in accordance with their political positions and alliances to ease the tensions between the polarized powers, in the hope of finding diplomatic solutions to the crises plaguing the region.

France holds the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU), Syria holds the revolving gavel of the Arab League Summit and Qatar is the current chairman of the six-member Arab Gulf Cooperation Council.

They met a day after Assad and Sarkozy, the first Western head-of-state to visit Syria in recent years, held bilateral talks in Damascus. During those talks, they agreed that France and Europe would actively sponsor the Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations should they come face-to-face as planned.

The four-way summit, analysts observed, brought solid results as indicated by the leaders in their statements at the meeting, which were televised on Arab channels and to reporters.

Analysts say the unusually candid remarks by Assad, Sarkozy, Hamad and Erdogan suggested that a plan of action has been put in place, one that excluded direct U.S. involvement by the George W. Bush administration, which has led a campaign to isolate Syria, and which nears the expiration of its term.

On the Middle East peace process, it was apparently agreed that Turkey would continue to mediate and host the indirect Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations. Erdogan announced a fifth round of talks on Sept. 18-19 after they were postponed from Sunday due to what Assad said was the resignation of the top Israeli negotiator.

Assad said the fifth round would be "decisive."

Syria has sent a list of six proposals or "principles" to Israel through Turkey that sets the basis for resuming direct negotiations, which were suspended in 2000 due Syria's insistence on Israel returning the Golan Heights, occupied in 1967, in return for peace.

"We are awaiting Israel's response to six points that we have submitted through Turkey," Assad said at the summit. "We are also waiting for the Israeli election, to be assured that a new prime minister would be on the same track as (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and be ready to completely withdraw from the occupied land in order to achieve peace."

Olmert has announced he would resign as premier after a leadership election in his centrist Kadima party in mid-September.

Assad continued: "Our response would be positive, paving the way for direct talks after a new U.S. administration that believes in the peace process takes office."

The Bush administration has been lukewarm to the resumption of the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, repeatedly insisting that Damascus should give up its "state sponsorship of terrorism," in reference to anti-Israeli Palestinian factions and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerilla organization.

Sarkozy, however, indicated that the United States approved of his landmark visit to Syria, saying that Washington "knows where I am and what I'm doing here."

Assad and Sarkozy also said that France and the EU were ready to take a leading supportive role in co-sponsoring, along with the United States, future direct peace talks between Syria and Israel.

The Syrian leader said that Qatar, which has contacts and commercial ties with Israel, was also playing a role in supporting the peace process, "even if these efforts are silent and away from the limelight."

Sources close to the talks said that Sarkozy had asked Qatar's emir and Assad to help secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Gaza militants in June 2006.

According to the French AFP news agency, the French presidency said Wednesday that Sarkozy would give a letter from Shalit's father to Assad, who would then hand the letter to Sheikh Hamad, who would then pass it on to Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mishaal.

The agency said the letter appealing to Mishaal would be delivered in this manner so that Assad could not be viewed as an official intermediary between Hamas and Israel.

In another related development, Assad revealed that Lebanese President Michel Suleiman had agreed to join future direct negotiations with Israel.

"We don't want just a peace agreement. We want peace," the Syrian president had remarked.

As for Syria's close ties with Iran, Sarkozy asked Assad to use his influence with Tehran to persuade it to respond positively to Western offers to stop uranium enrichment to assure the rest of the world that it was indeed not building nuclear weapons.

"President Assad and France may have differing or similar views (on Iran's nuclear program), but Syria can have influence in this issue," Sarkozy said.

"We want peace and we should use all the channels available to convince Iran not to continue with its bad strategy based on its belief that NATO is working against them," he said. "NATO is working for peace in this region."