(Bloomberg) -- Iran will exceed an agreed cap on its inventories of low-enriched uranium in 10 days, potentially breaching for the first time a landmark 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.

The spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, also said the country would step up the pace of enrichment after that deadline.

The televised announcement comes amid heightened friction with the U.S., which has accused the Islamic Republic of being behind a spate of attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz shipping chokepoint. Iran has denied any wrongdoing.

(Corrects the date of Iran’s expected breach of the nuclear stockpile limit in headline and first paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Golnar Motevalli in Tehran at gmotevalli@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Tarek El-Tablawy

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