Iranian Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham Monday urged Japan to go ahead with a two-billion-dollar oil contract as soon as possible, warning that only two days left for Japan to make a final decision in the ongoing negotiations or the Islamic Republic would search for another partner.

"There are just one or two days left. If the negotiations end in an agreement then we will continue, otherwise there is another way," Elham told reporters.

"The oil ministry will not wait and will use the means that it has and will enter into negotiations with firms that have the capacity to do this work," he added.

Elham made the remarks while the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Japanese oil giant INPEX Holding Inc. were continuing their negotiation on Iran's largest oil field of Azadegan regardless of Tehran's unilaterally-imposed deadline to finalize the contract.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh has said that the Japanese company had until Friday to finalize the two-billion-dollar deal or it would be given to Iranian oil companies.

Kamal Daneshyar, head of Iranian parliament's energy commission,also warned Saturday that Tehran would cancel the deal and give the project to Iranian corporations if Japan continued to delay the project.

The deal to exploit Iran's largest onshore oil field was signedin 2004 with Japan's INPEX Holding Inc. which was supported by theJapanese government but also has private shareholders.

According to the contract, production of the oil field in southwestern Iran was estimated at 260,000 bpd, which has an estimated 26 billion barrels of oil in reserve.

The two sides had previously set a final deadline on Sept. 15, but failed to reach an agreement over profit-sharing.

The United States has imposed high pressure on the Japanese government, warning it not to finalize the project when Iran was trying to continue its nuclear program.