Iran nuclear talks deadline extended 'yet again'

The deadline to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear programme has been extended yet again as the world powers struggled to resolve the lingering differences.

After initially extending a June 30 deadline, the negotiators were chasing a Tuesday deadline. However, the U.S. State Department said that it has been extended once again and the new deadline is now on Friday as talks continued, reported Fox News.

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said in a statement that the two sides had made 'substantial progress' in every area but the work was highly technical and involved high stakes for all the sides participating in the process.

She said that they were more concerned about the quality of the deal than about the clock and added that they knew difficult decisions won't get any easier with time. "That is why we are continuing to negotiate," Harf said.

The spokesperson also noted that the negotiators were taking the talks 'day to day' in order to reach a comprehensive agreement.

Referring to a prior interim agreement, Harf said that in order to allow for the additional time to negotiate, they were taking the necessary technical steps for the measures of the Joint Plan of Action to remain in place through July 10.

The extension has raised questions about whether world powers would be able to resolve their differences and seal a nuclear deal with Iran.

U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier warned that they could walk away if they were presented with a bad deal.