by WorldTribune Staff, December 18, 2017
French President Emmanuel Macron should get off of U.S. President Donald Trump’s lap and stop raising the possibility of new sanctions on Iran over the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, an Iranian official said.
“To sustain its international credibility, France should not blindly follow the Americans … The French president is now acting as Trump’s lapdog,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.
Tensions between Iran and France have risen in recent months after Macron said Teheran should be less aggressive in the Middle East, citing in particular its involvement in Syria’s civil war.
Macron has been critical of Iran’s ballistic missile tests and said he would raise the possibility of new sanctions over the program.
Last month, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned Europe that if it threatens Iran, the IRGC will increase the range of its missiles to above 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).
Velayati also blasted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who last week presented pieces of what she said were parts of an Iranian missile supplied to Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. She described the objects as conclusive evidence that Teheran was violating UN resolutions.
Related: Amb. Haley cites ‘undeniable evidence’ of Iranian weapon supplies to Yemeni rebels, December 15, 2017
“This claim shows she lacks basic scientific knowledge and decency. She is like her boss (Trump) as he also says baseless, ridiculous things. Iran has not supplied Yemen with any missile,” Velayati said.
Tasnim news agency on Dec. 17 quoted IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif as saying that “they show a cylinder and say Iran’s fingerprints are all over it, while everyone knows that Yemen acquired some missile capabilities from the Soviet Union and North Korea in the past.”
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