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Iran has said it will breach the internationally agreed limit of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium within days, ramping up the pressure on the remaining signatories to save the 2015 nuclear deal.

The spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), , said yesterday Iran would reach the allowed 300kg level of enriched uranium at levels mandated by the agreement with world powers on June 27.

“We will go further from that ceiling, not only that but we will also increase production drastically. After we pass the limit of 300kg the pace and the speed of enriched uranium production at the lower rate will also increase,” Kamalvandi said yesterday, speaking on television from Iran’s Arak nuclear plant.

Tehran said it would reduce compliance with some elements of the nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May, a year after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Under it, Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on May 8 the remaining signatories – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Russia – had 60 days to implement their promises to protect Iran’s oil and banking sectors from reimposed US sanctions.

Commenting on yesterday’s announcement, Ali Fathollah Nejad from the Brookings Doha Centre said “The aim is to increase the bargaining leverage and to put increasing pressure on Europe”.

“This is more symbolic than substantial because Iran is not going to commit any violation. They’re going to go as far as possible to the threshold but won’t break it because they’ll lose European support. And for now, this is not the Iranian strategy.”

Kamalvandi said they were still waiting for officials to tell them what the second phase of the strategy for reducing commitments to the JCPOA would be but said the deal could still be salvaged.

“There is still time … if European countries act,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Tehran, said the atomic energy spokesman noted Iran had heard “good words” from Europe but had not seen any action.

“He’s very clear that if the Europeans don’t hold up their end of the deal within the coming weeks, the Iranians are in the position to increase their percentage. That is something that it will be up to the leaders of Iran to decide.”

Rouhani had said in May that Iran could resume high-level uranium enrichment if world powers did not uphold their part of the nuclear deal.

Tehran would increase uranium enrichment levels “based on the country’s needs,” Kamalvandi also said.

He said there were two scenarios. One would be to increase the enrichment up to five percent for the use in the Bushehr power plant, or to increase it up to 20 percent for a research reactor in Tehran.

Both levels would be above the 3.67 percent enrichment allowed under the nuclear deal, and put the country closer to being able to produce weapons-grade material.

—Al Jazeera.