The White House wants inspections of Iran's nuclear sites to continue despite President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier this week, U.S. officials told AFP on Thursday.
Despite leaving the deal, senior administration officials said the monitoring of Iran should continue.
When announcing his withdrawal announcement on Tuesday, Trump pilloried the accord for lacking mechanisms to "prevent, detect, and punish cheating" or provide immediate access to suspicious military sites.
Still, the White House is demanding those inspections, however imperfect, continue under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.
"We expect Iran will continue to implement the Additional Protocol and cooperate with the IAEA whether or not the JCPOA remains in place," one senior administration official told AFP.
A second official confirmed that Washington still wanted the inspections.
The IAEA has released several reports which showed that Iran was continuing to abide by the deal's key measures.
In March, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said inspectors had had "access to all the sites and locations which we needed to visit" in Iran while warning against the deal falling apart.
Iran has in the past threatened to reconsider its cooperation with the IAEA if the United States failed to respect its commitments in the 2015 deal. It remains unclear how it will act now that Washington has pulled out, as other signatories to the deal have vowed to press ahead with the agreement's implementation.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said earlier this week that the deal could remain in place even if Trump withdraws from it.
“If we can get what we want from a deal without America, then Iran will continue to remain committed to the deal," Rouhani said, adding, "What Iran wants is our interests to be guaranteed by non-American signatories. ... Getting rid of America’s mischievous presence will be fine for Iran.”