The Ethiopian prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in India on Saturday morning, where he also offered condolences over the loss of martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

“Your resistance, resilience and patriotism as Iranians are a great achievement that we, the people of Ethiopia, want to learn from you,” Abiy Ahmed Ali said.

He also called for the expansion of relations between Ethiopia and Iran, noting that his country has extensive economic and cultural exchanges with Iran’s neighboring states and expressing a desire to increase such interactions with Iran as well.

Pezeshkian, for his part, emphasized the need to develop economic relations among BRICS member states, saying that stronger economic and financial ties among the members could contribute to their development and that all countries should work toward increasing interaction.

The Iranian president said that Iran has witnessed unfair attacks by its enemies over the past several months, adding that the enemy sought to incite divisions among the people and cause bloodshed.

He stressed that the enemy’s “savage actions” have instead brought the Iranian people closer together and that Iranians are now standing against the aggression with all their strength.

Pezeshkian further stated that through the Iranian people’s resistance, the US and the Zionist regime would not achieve their “sinister objectives.”

He said Iran has strengthened its relations with Muslim and neighboring countries, stressing that its relations with its neighbors have stood firm for thousands of years and would continue to expand day by day.

The Iranian president described the long history of relations between Iran and Ethiopia as noteworthy, saying the two countries, with more than 70 years of brotherly relations, have demonstrated that they have always stood by each other.

He finally expressed confidence that the relationship between Iran and Ethiopia would become more cohesive and more organized in the future.