DUBAI — Iran will surpass the internationally agreed limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles in 10 days, the country's atomic energy body said Monday.

A spokesperson for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said that the country would increase enrichment levels to 20% — significantly closer to weapons-grade material — for use in local reactors, but emphasized that Europe still had a chance to rescue the 2015 nuclear deal if its remaining signatories found a way to shield the Islamic Republic from the crippling effect of U.S. economic sanctions.

"We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently, so that in 10 days it will bypass the 300 kilogram limit," Iran's Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on state TV, as quoted by Reuters. "There is still time ... if European countries act."

Iran would be exceeding its internationally-agreed enrichment cap of 3.67%, which is the amount allowed for civilian nuclear power development. Weapons-grade enrichment is 90%, but according to nuclear experts, reaching 3 to 4% enrichment equates to roughly two-thirds of the work done toward that 90% figure, as any increases beyond that seemingly small amount disproportionately speeds up breakout time.

Tehran is threatening to roll back its obligations under the nuclear deal a year after the Trump administration withdrew from it and reimposed punishing sanctions on the Iranian economy, most significantly its oil sector, the country's largest source of revenue.

The nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was meant to offer Iran financial relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program and was signed under the Obama administration along with the U.S., France, Germany, the U.K., Russia and China.

The deal's non-U.S. signatories opposed the Trump administration's withdrawal and have pledged to keep the deal alive, even going so far as creating a special-purpose vehicle that could facilitate trade with Iran while skirting U.S. secondary sanctions.

Iran's Atomic Energy Organization spokesman said Monday that European leaders needed to "act, not talk."