"Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani will travel to Washington to discuss the lifting of the remaining sanctions," the source said, requesting anonymity as they were not allowed to brief the media.

Syria State television later reported that Shaibani landed in Washington for an official visit.

The United States already lifted most sanctions it imposed on Syria during the rule of President Bashar al-Assad after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted him in December.

The last time a Syrian foreign minister was in the United States was in 1999, when the top diplomat at the time, Farouk al-Sharaa, held talks on peace negotiations with Israel.

Syria will also strike several security and military agreements with Israel by the end of the year, a foreign ministry official told AFP on Thursday. 

"There is progress in the talks with Israel," said the official who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media, adding that several agreements are expected to be signed "by the end of the year".

"Primarily, these would be security and military agreements," he said, adding that there would be a focus on "an agreement to halt (Israeli) military operations inside Syria".

On Tuesday, Syria announced that it was working with the United States to reach mutual "security understandings" with Israel.

The announcement was part of a US- and Jordan-backed roadmap for restoring stability in the south following sectarian violence that drew Israeli intervention, and a Syrian military official told AFP that heavy weapons had been withdrawn from the area.

Last week, President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Syria was negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied in recent months.

The United States has been pushing Syria and Israel to reach an agreement that would halt hostilities between the two countries.

Since December, Israel deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separates the countries' forces and launched hundreds of strikes in Syria.