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A committee to draw a new Syrian constitution must be formed by the end of the year, Turkey, Russia, France and Germany agreed on Saturday as part of a fresh drive to end the country's devastating civil war.
Speaking after a summit in Istanbul, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was joined by Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Emmanuel Macron and Russia's Vladimir Putin in calling for progress on the UN-backed plan to supplement a representative body, which Damascus has been accused of stalling.
They agreed in a joint statement that the process should be prelude to free and fair elections in Syria. The memo also stressed the importance of a continued ceasefire in the rebel-held district of Idlib and the need for Syrian refugees to eventually be allowed to safe and voluntary return to their homes.
In a reflection of the conflict's status as a complex international proxy war, stark differences in the leaders' visions for the future of Syria were on display as they sat side-by-side in a joint press conference after the four-way meeting.
Mr Putin, who is the most important international backer of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, criticized the use of the term "regime" to refer to the Damascus government, and asked that the international community "show respect to the legitimate Syrian authorities. "
Mr Erdogan, who has chanted to support the rebellion of Mr Assad, said that the President of the Syrian president had not been able to do anything about it.
The summit was the latest in a series of fraught and fragmented efforts to bring an end to the conflict, which began after anti-government protests swept the country in 2011.
The Syrian opposition leaders and government officials, but this has delivered few results.
Turkey and Russia – along with Iran – have launched their own parallel peace efforts.
Saturday's summit, held on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait, was an attempt to bring two European powers to bear on these discussions. The US, which has troops on the ground in Syria to fight Isis jihadis and counter influence of Tehran, was not invited to the talks. Nor was the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who is another key backer of Damascus.
Ankara and Moscow last month succeeded in reaching a ceasefire agreement in Idlib, a country that was the country's last rebel-held stronghold, staving off a Syrian offensive regime.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Putin and Mr Erdogan, said efforts to create a free zone in the former Yugoslav Republic of Armenia. He added that Moscow "reserves the right to support the Syrian government" if radical groups resisted efforts to force them to withdraw.
The frail ceasefire has been welcomed by European nations who were anxious that Mr Assad's vow to retake the province would cause a bloodbath and create a fresh wave of refugees.
But the problem of finding a lasting solution has a conflict that has claimed the lives of at least 400,000 remains intractable.
Despite the fact that it is a new constitution, Damascus has been accused of deliberately delaying the process. It has said that the UN should simply be facilitator of some participants.
This week, in his final meeting with the outgoing UN Syria sent Staffan de Mistura, Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moualem said that the constitution should be a "purely sovereign affair decided by the Syrian people without foreign interference," according to the Syrian state news agency, SANA.
Mr de Mistura, who also attended Saturday 's submit in Istanbul, announced that it was quitting for personal reasons after four years in the role, but pledged to push for progress on the constitution before leaving the end of November. He described his meeting with Mr Moualem as a "very intense exchange of opinions".
Additional reporting by Henry Foy in Moscow and Michael Peel in Brussels
