The deadline for a deal to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons programme has been pushed back seven months.

The US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany originally set a deadline for today, but failed to reach a long-term deal that would take the place of the interim agreement signed in Geneva last year.

The group of nations will restart negotiations with Iran in December and aim to finalise an agreement by 1 July, during which period the Islamic Republic will be permitted access to £450m per month in frozen funds.

Speaking in anticipation of the deferral, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “No deal is better than a bad deal. The deal that Iran was pushing for was terrible. A deal would have left Iran with the ability to enrich uranium for an atom bomb while removing the sanctions.

“The right deal that is needed is to dismantle Iran's capacity to make atomic bombs and only then dismantle the sanctions. Since that's not in the offing, this result is better, a lot better.”

The UK’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who has been involved in the talks in Vienna, said this latest development was “a disappointment, but rather than continue blindly we have to recognise the reality that we're not going to make a deal tonight”.

He added: "We are all clear that enough progress has been made that maintaining the current momentum, and keeping working at it, does give us the prospect of getting to a deal.”