President Asif Zardari is leaving for Syria on a three-day visit on Thursday to offer his condolence on the death of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s younger brother Majid al-Assad, who passed away last month.

The president will also visit Dubai on his return from Damascus. He will visit Turkey in the last week of this month, where preparations are underway in Ankara to host a new trilateral summit with Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be followed by a regional conference on Afghanistan with the participation of neighbours of the war-torn country.

At the trilateral summit, President Abdullah Gull, Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari will discuss host of issues. The summit is expected to take place at the end of this month, diplomatic sources told media here on Saturday.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani cancelled his trip to Devos to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an austerity measure. The participation to the WEF annual meeting is by invitation only and strictly limited to the criteria and quota of each stakeholder group.

Prime Minister Gilani is designating a federal minister to represent Pakistan in the WEF, the sources said. President Zardari would visit Dubai second time in a fortnight, the sources said.