Iran and the six major world powers failed to reach a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program by Monday’s deadline, but did manage to agree on a seven-month extension to the talks.  Iran and the US now say they are confident of a confirmed deal before the new deadline of 1 July 2015.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a deal was close but US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that several points of disagreement remained.  “It is true that we could not reach an agreement but we can still say that big steps have been taken,” Rouhani said on Iranian state television.  In Vienna where the negotiations had taken place, Kerry was more cautious, warning that although “substantial progress” had been made there are still “some significant points of disagreement”.

The six countries are the US, UK, Russia, China, France, and Germany, for these negotiations known as P5+1.  They’ve been in negotiations with Iran to finalize a preliminary deal reached last year in Geneva.  The West would remove economic sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program, which Iran insists is for power generation and medical research.