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 Both sides say there has been progress in two weeks of talks, but
British Secretary Philip Hammond called it "painfully slow" and he
and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, left Vienna saying they
would return on Saturday.
Having missed a Friday morning U.S. congressional deadline, U.S. and
European Union officials said they were extending sanctions relief
for Iran under an interim deal through Monday to provide more time
for talks on a final deal.
Iran and six powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and
the United States - are trying to end a more than 12-year dispute
over Iran's atomic program by negotiating limits on its nuclear
activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The sides remain divided over issues that include a U.N. arms
embargo on Iran which Western powers want to keep in place, access
for inspectors to military sites in Iran and answers from Tehran
over past activity suspected of military aims.
Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a deal was
unlikely to be reached on Friday and negotiators would probably
spend the weekend in Vienna. He sought to blame the West for the
impasse.
 "Now, they have excessive demands," he said of the major powers'
negotiating position.
Britain's Hammond said ministers would regroup on Saturday to see if
they could overcome the remaining hurdles.
"We are making progress, it's painfully slow," he told reporters
before leaving Vienna.
Zarif has been holding intense meetings for two weeks with U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry to try to hammer out a deal limiting
Iran's nuclear program in return for withdrawing economic sanctions
that have crippled the Iranian economy.
An agreement would be the biggest step toward rapprochement between
Iran and the West since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But the negotiations have become bogged down, with final deadlines
extended three times in the past 10 days and diplomats speaking of a
shouting match between Kerry and Zarif.
The White House said on Friday the United States and its negotiating
partners "have never been closer" to agreement with Iran but that
the U.S. delegation would not wait indefinitely.
China's official Xinhua news agency quoted a diplomatic source as
saying the West and Tehran had almost agreed on the clarification of
Iran's alleged past nuclear weapon program, so called possible
military dimensions (PMDs) issues and big progress was also made
over capping Iran's nuclear capability in the deal.
DEADLINE MISSED
The negotiators missed a Friday morning deadline set by the U.S.
Congress for an expedited 30-day review of the deal. Any deal sent
to Congress before Sept. 7 would now be subject to a 60 day review
period, accounting for lawmakers' summer recess.
U.S. officials had previously expressed concern that the extended
review would provide more time for any deal to unravel, but have
played down that risk in the last few days as it became increasingly
likely that the deadline would not be met.
On Thursday, Kerry suggested Washington's patience was running out:
"We can’t wait forever," he told reporters. "If the tough decisions
don’t get made, we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this."
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Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, called Kerry's remarks "part of America's
psychological warfare against Iran".
A senior Iranian official speaking on condition of anonymity said
the United States and the other powers were shifting their positions
and backtracking on an April 2 interim agreement that was meant to
lay the ground for a final deal.
"Suddenly everyone has their own red lines. Britain has its red
line, the U.S. has its red line, France, Germany," the official
said.
Back in Iran, Friday provided a reminder of the depth of more than
three decades of enmity between Iran and the West that a deal could
help overcome.
Iranians rallied for the last Friday of the fasting month of
Ramadan, observed in Iran as "Qods Day" or "Death to Israel day", to
show support for Palestinians, protest against Israel and chant
slogans against the "Great Satan" United States.
OPTIMISTS
Western countries suspect Iran of seeking the capability to make
nuclear weapons. Iran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear
technology.
Over the past two years, the nuclear talks have brought about the
first intensive direct diplomacy between the United States and Iran
since Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in
1979 and held hostages for over a year.
A successful outcome would be a triumph both for U.S. President
Barack Obama and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist
elected in 2013 on a pledge to reduce Iran's international
isolation. Optimists say a deal could help reshape Middle East
alliances at a time when Washington and Tehran face a common foe in
the Sunni militant group Islamic State.
But both presidents face scepticism from powerful hardliners at
home, making it difficult to bridge final differences.
(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau, Parisa Hafezi, Shadia
Nasralla, Doina Chiacu and Roberta Rampton; writing by Parisa
Hafezi, John Irish and Arshad Mohammed; editing by Peter Graff and
Philippa Fletcher)
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