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Lebanon's Hezbollah leader says Iran will not abandon support after nuclear deal with West

"We deal with every trust and complete assurance over this Nasrallah said in cerermony to honour sons and daughters of fallen Hezbollah fighters.

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The Lebanonese Hezbollah group believes it can still count on Iran's support following Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday. In his first public remarks since the agreement was reached this month in Geneva, Nasrallah said he was sure Tehran would confound critics who say it would end support to Hezbollah.

"We deal with every trust and complete assurance over this Nasrallah said in cerermony to honour sons and daughters of fallen Hezbollah fighters.

While President Hassan Rouhani defended Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after it came under attack from conservatives at home, arguing on Thursday it reflected the nation's will and was "more valuable" than carping over the details.

While many Iranians hope last week's agreement will bring an end to sanctions and deliver prosperity, the elite Revolutionary Guards military force and conservative lawmakers have said it endangers the country's security.

"This is a new page in history," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on television, reiterating that the deal had launched a phase of reconciliation with the outside world. Pinning his authority to the fate of the agreement, Rouhani added that this new era had not begun when it was reached in Vienna on July 14 but rather on Aug. 4, 2013, the day Iranian selected him to solve the nuclear dispute.

The deal imposes curbs on Iran's nuclear programme in return for an easing of the international sanctions which have badly hurt its economy. Iranian conservatives are not the only group unhappy withit. In the United States, Republicans who control Congress have also lined up against the agreement, although President Barack Obama says he will veto any congressional objection.

The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, has promised to do "everything possible" to stop the deal. U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Thursday he had not yet decided how to vote on the agreement, although he acknowledged that U.S. negotiators had "got an awful lot".
 
US Secretary of State John Kerry also has the task of selling the agreement to sceptical US allies in the region.Israel is strongly opposed while Washington's Sunni Muslim-ruled Arab allies, led by Saudi Arabia, are wary of an arrangement that would benefit their rival, Shi'ite Iran.

In Jeddah, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters that his country hoped the deal would curb rather than expand "Iran's interference in the region's affairs". "We hope that Iran will make use of the deal's fruits tore-build their country and to improve their people's quality of living, not to use it to conduct more subversion in the region."

Jubeir added that any agreement should guarantee Iran's inability to get nuclear weapons and allow inspection of "allocations including the military locations". Iran denies the nuclear programme aims to produce weapons.

The Revolutionary Guards have made it clear they will not permit any inspection of their military sites, and will not bow to any restriction on Iran's missile programme. European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, who helped to broker the agreement, will visit Riyadh on Monday and Tehran on Tuesday next week. In Riyadh, Mogherini will meet Jubeir to discuss "regional issues" following the Vienna deal, an EU statement said.

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