Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now accusing the West of tempering with the weather: The Iranian president said in a speech that the West is scheming to "cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran," The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

"According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump" their water on their continent, he was quoted as saying. Iran has been suffering from draughts over the past few years.

Ahmadinejad referred in his speech to an essay published by an unnamed Western politician, who claimed that droughts are expected to befall the area stretching between Turkey and Iran, and to east Asia, in the next 30 years.

"The regions (referred to in) the article ... include countries whose culture and civilizations frighten the West," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

According to the British paper, as soon as Ahmandinejad finished his claim at the inauguration of a dam in the city of Arak, it started to rain.

This was not the first time that the Iranian president blamed Western nations for various plots aiming to undermine the Islamic Republic's Ayatollah regime, sabotage its economic and scientific growth, and disrupt its foreign relations and national unity.