PARIS, July 12: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asked France on Saturday to assist in direct peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, alongside the United States, and contribute to future security arrangements in the region.

A joint Franco-Syrian statement issued after Assad met President Nicolas Sarkozy also said the French leader welcomed the Syrian president’s strong determination to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon.

“The Syrian President has expressed his wish that France, together with the United States of America, fully contributes to a future peace agreement between Syria and Israel, both to the direct peace talks and to the implementation of the peace agreement,” the statement said.

Syria launched indirect peace talks with Israel this year under Turkish mediation but has insited that it wants the United States to be the main broker in negotiatios over the return of the Golan Heights captured by Israel in 1967.

The last talks direct between the Israel and Syria under US sponsorship broke down eight years ago and Washington has been reluctant to re-engage with Damascus because of its role in Lebanon and close ties with Iran.

The statement said Sarkozy would visit Syria by mid-September to relaunch relations between Paris and Damascus, which have been tense since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, which France believes was orchestrated from Damascus.

It also said the French leader, as current holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency, would start the procedure to sign a long-stalled association agreement between Syria and the EU and its ratification, which were put on ice after Hariri’s murder.

Assad made a diplomatic comeback on Saturday when he was welcomed by Sarkozy on a visit to France that ended years of isolation.

After years of being shunned by former leader Jacques Chirac, Assad went to the Elysee palace for talks with Sarkozy ahead of the gathering on Sunday.

Making his first visit to France since 2001, Assad reviewed an honour guard at the Elysee palace before going into the meeting with Sarkozy.

“This visit is for me a historic visit: an opening up to France and to Europe,” Assad said in an interview last week to Le Figaro newspaper.

Assad has suggested that Sarkozy, who took over from Chirac in May last year, could play a direct role in Israeli-Syrian talks.

Israel and Syria, which technically remain at war ever since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, have held three rounds of indirect talks through Turkey since March, raising peace prospects after an eight-year break.

France and the United States have called on Lebanon and Syria to establish full diplomatic relations to bolster stability after Damascus pulled its troops out of Lebanon in 2005, ending nearly three decades of military presence.

After the election in May of Lebanon’s Sleiman under a power-sharing deal, Sarkozy moved to reward Assad by renewing high-level contacts with Syria.

—Agencies