Kerry leaving Vienna to consult with his European counterpart

US Secretary of State John Kerry is leaving the high level Iran nuclear talks in Vienna to travel to Paris for further consultations with some of the nations involved in the talks.

Kerry was scheduled to head to Paris on Friday to consult with European allies to plan for “the next steps forward,” said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

A statement from the US State Department said Kerry’s “future travel schedule is still being finalized, and we have not yet determined when he will return to Vienna.''

Diplomats said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond were also leaving the talks. They arrived in Vienna earlier in the day.

Earlier reports said that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will leave the nuclear energy talks with the P5+1 group in the Austrian capital to Tehran to consult. But later reports said that Zarif was staying “and the talks will continue.''

Kerry arrived in Vienna on Thursday, insisting that the talks on Iran’s nuclear program were focused on a deal before the Nov. 24 deadline.

Iran and the P5+1 - the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany - are in talks in Vienna to work out a final deal aimed at ending the longstanding standoff over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.

Sources close to the Iranian negotiating team say the main stumbling block to a nuclear accord is the removal of all sanctions imposed on the country, and not the number of centrifuges or the level of uranium enrichment.

US President Barack Obama has extended the so-called National Emergency Act with respect to Iran which would keep sanctions in place for at least another year.