TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- France should not interfere in Iran’s missile program, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed  Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that Tehran should be less aggressive in the region and should clarify the strategy around its ballistic missile program.
"It does not benefit Mr. Macron and France to interfere on the missile issue and the strategic affairs of the Islamic Republic, which we have great sensitivities about,” Velayati said.
"What does this issue have to do with Mr. Macron? Who is he at all to interfere? If he wants relations between Iran and France to grow then he should try not to interfere in these issues.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has said Iranian missile capability should be curbed.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said the Islamic Republic’s missile program is for defense purposes and is not up for negotiation. The program was not part of the 2015 nuclear deal with Western powers under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
France said on Wednesday it wanted an "uncompromising” dialogue with Iran about its ballistic missile program and a possible negotiation over the issue separate from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
On Saturday, a White House statement said U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and they greed on the need to work with allies to counter the "destabilizing” activities of Iran and Hezbollah in the Middle East.
Paris has intensified its rhetoric against Tehran. On Thursday, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, accused Iran of having "hegemonic intentions”.
Velayati said France’s "interference will have no impact other than diminishing the French government’s credibility in Iran’s eyes.”
He said Iran would ask no one for permission to have or not to have missiles or to change the range of those missiles.
He advised Macron, France’s youngest leader since Napoleon, to follow in the footsteps of the late French ruler General Charles de Gaulle by adopting a stance of "semi-independence” in his foreign policy.
Velayati said Iran would say no to any proposal to enter into negotiations on its missile program. "No country,” he said, "would bargain over its national interests.”
In a November 11 visit to Saudi Arabia, Macron had said he was "very concerned” about Iran’s ballistic missile program, adding, "There are negotiations we need to start on Iran’s ballistic missiles.”
Velayati also said Trump "is used to racketeering, but running this country (America) is not like running a cabaret or a casino, where he would use shenanigans to accumulate money.”
He referred to Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia earlier in the year, after which the U.S. president boasted of having made a lot of money, apparently referring to American arms sales worth hundreds of billions of dollars to Riyadh.
Velayati said it showed that Trump viewed international relations as a means of making money.
He said Trump was "wrong” about Iran and would benefit from learning a salutary lesson from his predecessors and should "know that he is no match” for the Iranian nation and government.