Apart from the many questions about Tuesday's agreement that remain unanswered, it will have no standing until ratified by Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

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Mr Jalili, who heads Iran's supreme national security council and is considered a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters that "kidnapping innocent people is not acceptable anywhere", Iran's official news agency Irna reported.

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In addition to being the deputy chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Jafari, as he is known here, is a Revolutionary Guard commander who was implicated in the assassination of an Iranian opposition leader in Vienna in 1989.

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The military chiefs pressed this view on Mr Lagos and on the president of the Supreme Court at a meeting last week of the National Security Council.

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The most powerful and influential man in today's Iran is the unelected Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assisted by a National Security Council that includes dozens of political leaders.

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The Supreme Security Committee, an agency set up under the national transitional council, has acquired too much power, lacks accountability and may have been responsible for the lackadaisical response to the desecration of the Sufi shrines.

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Speaking on Hizbullah's Al Manar television network on Sunday, Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran's National Security Council, its chief nuclear negotiator and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, essentially told Hamas that it is on its own.

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