Habib Mohammed Osman, media advisor to the Eritrean Embassy in Cairo
Date: Tuesday, 29 September 2026
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Habib Mohammed Osman, the media advisor to the Eritrean Embassy in Cairo, confirmed that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly declared, before Parliament and local media, his country’s desire to seize the Eritrean port of Assab, considering that proposing control over land belonging to a sovereign state constitutes a declaration of war and does not contribute to achieving stability and peace.
He added, during a meeting with journalist Hassani Bashir on the “African Harvest” program broadcast on the “Cairo News” channel, that Eritrea is suffering from the Ethiopian policy based on expansion, pointing out that his country was subjected to Ethiopian occupation for about 40 years, before it began resisting the occupation in 1961, then it was liberated militarily, and the referendum was held in 1993 to make Eritrea an independent and sovereign state and a member of the United Nations and the African Union.
Osman pointed out that Abiy Ahmed bases his demands on historical claims regarding Ethiopia's presence on the Red Sea coast, considering that the Ethiopian Empire has run its course and that the country is heading towards collapse.
He explained that the foundations of the Ethiopian Empire were linked to the Amhara and Tigray nationalities, noting that the Tigrays moved towards self-determination and secession, while the Amhara are currently facing Abiy Ahmed and possess military power.
He warned that the disintegration of Ethiopia, with a population of about 130 million, would pose a danger to the region and the world, stressing that Eritrea, by virtue of its position as a neighboring country to Ethiopia, would be affected by these developments.
He said that the current developments in Ethiopia are not recent, explaining that the country has multiple armed groups fighting the federal government led by Abiy Ahmed, and that these groups have national and ethnic demands.
He added that the conflict between the Tigray region and the federal government has begun to intensify, considering that these developments may ultimately lead to igniting the region in general, and that the situation in Ethiopia does not bode well.
Osman explained that Ethiopia was originally an empire, and that since its founding by Menelik II in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it has adopted, in his view, a policy of expansion at the expense of its neighbors and the annexation of territories by force.
He pointed out that Emperor Haile Selassie did not change this policy, but rather continued to expand and annex areas of the Somali region and Eritrea, stressing that the expansion policy adopted by the Ethiopian Empire is one of the main reasons for the instability of the Horn of Africa region.
He pointed out that the Tigray region represents an essential part of the current developments, as it is a region bordering Eritrea, noting that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was founded in 1974, in the context of the conflicts that the country witnessed.
