For the first time since the fall of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, the EU is considering lifting sanctions in a variety of sectors. But the bloc wants to keep leverage over the Islamist group now in power.

Syria's top diplomat said Wednesday that lifting economic sanctions imposed during the rule of ousted president Bashar al-Assad was "key" to stability in the country. Syria's new authorities are lobbying Western powers to remove sanctions that had targeted Assad's government over his brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011,