Gul will join Arab League chief Amr Mussa, who is in the Syrian capital to help broker a deal over Lebanon's presidential crisis, to launch celebrations marking Damascus being named the 2008 cultural capital of the Arab world.

The Turkish president, who is on his first visit to Syria since his election in August, said he wished to further ties between Damascus and Ankara, reported SANA.

After decades of animosity, Turkish-Syrian relations improved significantly from 1998, when Damascus forced Turkish Kurd rebel Abdullah Ocalan out of Syria, where he had enjoyed safe haven.

The countries signed an economic, political and security agreement during a visit by Assad to Ankara in October 2007.