UPDATE 3-Bush to host financial crisis summit

(Updates with more quotes, details, adds byline)

By Tabassum Zakaria and Yann Le Guernigou

CAMP DAVID, Md., Oct 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday said he would soon host a summit of world leaders to look at strategies to combat the global financial crisis to make sure it does not happen again.

"It is essential that we work together because we are in this crisis together," Bush said before a meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Bush said he would host the meeting in the "near future" and that he had discussed plans for the summit with Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan, the current chair of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

Bush stressed that the summit, called in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, should not seek to undercut the basic economic principles of international capitalism.

"As we make the regulatory and institutional changes necessary to avoid a repeat of this crisis, it is essential that we preserve the foundations of democratic capitalism -- a commitment to free markets, free enterprise and free trade," Bush said.

Sarkozy has called for an overhaul of the current international financial architecture established just after World War II at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, and said on Saturday the summit could possibly be held before the end of November in New York.

'EUROPE'S VOICE'

Bush has not publicly commented on Sarkozy's overhaul proposal, and the White House has said the immediate focus is on addressing the crisis at hand.

"For this meeting to be a success, we must welcome good ideas from around the world," Bush said to reporters after greeting the European leaders who arrived by helicopter.

Both developed and developing countries would be represented, "and together we will work to strengthen and modernize our nations' financial systems so we can help ensure that this crisis doesn't happen again," he said.

Sarkozy, whose country now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the meeting would be a "great opportunity" to reassess how the world runs its financial affairs.

"Those who have led us to where we are today should not be allowed to do so once again," he said.

"This sort of capitalism is a betrayal of the sort of capitalism we believe in. And that is the reason why ... we have come to make Europe's voice heard."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accompanied Bush to Camp David, and French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde accompanied Sarkozy.