According to IRNA, Pezeshkian made the remark while meeting with a group representatives from different ethnic and religious minorities in Tehran on Sunday.

He referred to his election campaign focusing on various issues, including creating justice toward ethnic and religious groups, a slogan which he said was not to secure votes. 

"We are at the beginning of this path and it is necessary to have more interaction and dialogue in order to succeed in this path, and I will try to have more detailed and serious meetings with the representatives of all ethnic and religious groups of the country," he elaborated.

The president-elect also stressed that he believes it is not possible to build a prosperous country through differences and confrontations, and clarified: “If we have differences and cannot reconcile, both Shias and Sunnis will suffer and those differences will result in distancing the public from religion, and therefore, the solution to achieve our national goals is to strengthen unity, cohesion and tolerance”.

Stating that he will hold a detailed meeting with large ethnic and religious groups as soon as possible, Pezeshkian said that there is a proverb in the Turkish language that “the power of people together is like the power of a flood and if we do not unite together, we cannot resolve problems”.