Rebels pose for a picture after capturing a military airport in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Monday.

The US has discussed lifting sanctions on Syria if it cuts ties with Iran and blocks weapons smuggling routes to Hezbollah.

Multiple sources told news agency Reuters that American officials had entered talks with the UAE about joint action to relax restrictions on Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The conversations have intensified in recent months, driven by the possible expiry on Dec 20 of sweeping US sanctions on Syria and by Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s regional network, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Iranian assets in Syria.

The discussions took place before anti-Assad rebels swept into Aleppo last week in their biggest offensive in Syria for years.

According to the sources, the new rebel advance is a signal of precisely the sort of weakness in Assad’s alliance with Iran that the Emirati and US initiative aims to exploit.

However, if Assad embraces Iranian help for a counter-offensive, that could complicate efforts to drive a wedge between them.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, visited Syria on Sunday in a show of support for Assad.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE president, also spoke to the Syrian leader by phone about the latest developments at the weekend.

Reuters spoke to two US sources, four Syrian and Lebanese interlocutors, and two foreign diplomats who said the US and UAE see a window to drive a wedge between Assad and Iran, which helped him recapture swathes of his country during the civil war that erupted in 2011.

Lebanese media have reported that Israel had suggested lifting US sanctions on Syria.

However, the UAE initiative with the US has not previously been reported.

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syria’s government and the White House did not respond to questions, while the UAE referred Reuters to its statement on bin Zayed’s call with Assad.

The UAE has taken a leading role in rehabilitating Assad among the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab states that shunned him after he accepted help from Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran to put down the Sunni-led rebellion against him.

The Emirates hosted Assad in 2022, his first visit to an Arab country since the start of the war, before the Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership.

The UAE has long hoped to distance Assad from Iran and wants to build business ties with Syria, but US sanctions have hampered those efforts, the sources said.

A senior regional diplomat briefed by Tehran told Reuters Iran had been informed “about behind-the-scenes efforts by some Arab countries to isolate Iran ... by distancing Syria from Tehran”.

The diplomat said those efforts were linked to offers of possible sanctions relief by Washington.

Hezbollah and its patron Iran have intervened in Syria since 2012 to protect Assad against Sunni rebels – but their bases and weapons shipments through Syria have been repeatedly hit by Israel, which has sought to weaken Iran across the region.

In recent months, Hezbollah has withdrawn fighters from Syria, including in the north, to focus on battling Israel in southern Lebanon. The rebels who recently swept into Aleppo pointed to the Hezbollah withdrawal as one of the reasons why they faced little resistance from government forces.

A US source familiar with the matter said White House officials discussed an overture with Emirati officials, citing the UAE’s interest in financing Syria’s reconstruction and Assad’s “weakened position” after Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah.

The possibility of sanctions relief for Assad, while Israel was hitting Iran’s allies, created an “opportunity” to apply a “carrot-and-stick approach” to fracture Syria’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, the source said.

The US placed sanctions on Syria after Assad attempted to suppress anti-government protests in 2011, and the sanctions were repeatedly tightened in the years of war that followed.

The toughest, known as the Caesar Act, passed Congress in 2019. The Caesar sanctions apply across Syrian business sectors, to anyone dealing with Syria, regardless of nationality, and to those dealing with Russian and Iranian entities in the country.

Assad said the measures amounted to economic warfare, blaming them for the Syrian currency’s collapse and a drop in living standards.

The sanctions will expire on Dec 20 – unless they are renewed by US politicians.

Part of the recent American-Emirati discussions centred on allowing the Caesar sanctions to expire, said the US source and three of the Syrian interlocutors.

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