David Lammy said the UK government has had “diplomatic contact” with the Syrian rebel group that toppled Bashar Assad’s regime last weekend.
The Foreign Secretary warned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains a proscribed terrorist organisation.
His remarks came as Britain announced a £50 million humanitarian aid package for vulnerable Syrians across the Middle East.
He told the BBC News: “We want to see a representative government, an inclusive government.
“We want to see chemical weapons stockpiles secured, and not used, and we want to ensure that there is not continuing violence.
“For all of those reasons, using all the channels that we have available, and those are diplomatic and of course intelligence-led channels, we seek to deal with HTS where we have to.”
His US counterpart Antony Blinken said on Saturday that the US had made “direct contact” with the HTS rebels now in control since Assad fled to Moscow and was granted asylum.
Both the UK and the US have a vested interest in what happens next in Syria.
On the cash pledge Lammy said it followed talks on Saturday in Aqaba, hosted by Jordan and attended by ministers and delegates from the US, France, Germany, the Arab Contact Group, Bahrain, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the EU and UN.
They agreed on the importance of a “non-sectarian and representative government”, protecting human rights, unfettered access for humanitarian aid, the safe destruction of chemical weapons, and combatting terrorism.
“The UK urges the transitional government to adhere to these principles to build a more hopeful, secure and peaceful Syria,” Lammy said.
Some £120,000 of UK funding has also been made available to the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Another £30m will be channelled within Syria for food, shelter and emergency healthcare, while £10m is going to the World Food Programme in Lebanon and £10m to WFP and the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR in Jordan.
The intervention comes a week after the collapse of the Assad regime following a lightning offensive by HTS militants.
Since then, Western governments have debated how to deal with the rebel group, which is a banned organisation in the UK because of its closeness to al-Qaeda.
Its current leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who had used the alias Mohammed al-Golani before taking power, has attempted to distance his movement from the terrorists.
There is also concern that a power vacuum in Syria could exacerbate regional tensions and create conditions for the so-called Islamic State group to regain ground.
