Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the West of deliberately enacting a sinister plot to destroy his country’s rain clouds in an effort to bring about a damaging drought in the Islamic Republic.

“Today our country is moving towards drought, which is partly unintentional due to industry and partly intentional, as a result of the enemy destroying the clouds moving towards our country and this is a war that Iran is going to overcome,” Ahmadinejad said Monday, addressing the problems caused by the low rainfall trends, which experts say threatens Iran’s agricultural production.

Specialists have recently warned that low rainfall has reached “undesirable levels”, producing drought conditions in more than three-quarters of the country.

In July, Iranian vice president in charge of cultural heritage, Hasan Mousavi, similarly blamed the low rainfall that had plagued southern Iran as being part of a “soft war” launched by the West, the Fars News Agency reported at the time.

“I am suspicious about the drought in the southern part of the country,” he said.

“The world arrogance and colonist (term used by Iranian authorities to label the West) are influencing Iran’s climate conditions using technology… The drought is an acute issue and soft war is completely evident… This level of drought is not normal,” Mousavi alleged.  

Ahmadinejad has previously accused Western nations of deliberately emptying clouds to produce heavy rains in their own countries, while causing rain shortages in the Middle East.

“European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump” their water on their continent, he said at the time.

He claimed that he would pursue the matter through international legal channels.