Israeli and Syrian envoys have held talks in Turkey-without meeting face-to-face-on four occasions since May, when the talks were relaunched after an eight-year freeze. They last round was at the end of July.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meanwhile travel to Damascus on Thursday to attend four-way talks hosted by Syria on Middle East peace, a government spokesman said in Ankara.
The September 4 meeting will bring Erdogan together with the Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
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 main issue dividing the two long-time enemies remains the strategic Golan Heights, seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.
Syria has demanded the return of the entire territory running down to the banks of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main source of fresh water.
