Israeli troops who seized strategic ground in southern Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad will remain on the summit of Mount Hermon indefinitely, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday after visiting troops there.

The Israeli army “will remain at the summit of the Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh) and the security zone indefinitely to ensure the security of the communities of the Golan Heights and the north, and all the residents of Israel,” he said during a visit to Israeli forces in the area.

After the ouster of Syria's longtime leader Bashar al-Assad last month, Israel's military has taken up a new post in the demilitarized buffer zone created in Syria after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

European foreign ministers agreed on a “road map” to lift financial restrictions, but the change will happen in stages.

The European Union may soon suspend sanctions on Syria related to energy and transport but has yet to agree on whether to ease restrictions on financial transactions, according to three diplomats and a document seen by Reuters.

European Union foreign ministers have agreed on a roadmap to ease sanctions on Syria, the bloc's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday. "While we aim to move fast, the lifting of sanctions can be reversed if wrong steps are taken,