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In his keynote address at the Eritrea Festival 2018 in Frankfurt, EPDP Chairman Menghesteab Asmerom urged participants on the urgency of joint Eritrean action to ward off  the looming dangers to the very continuation of Eritrean sovereign existence. He said the priority agenda item for Eritrean justice seekers this year are two - namely, the status of the Eritrean opposition and the murky relation building up between the two governments in Asmara and Addis Ababa.

The EPDP chairman, who believed the present Eritrean situation to be more critical than ever, accessed significant global developments with emphasis on the regional tensions re-alignments directly affecting the Horn of Africa and Red Sea basin. In particular, he talked in length about the involvement of the Eritrean regime in the conflict in Yemen which is driven by the Saudi Arabia and its coalition members in the region.

Mr. Menghesteab Asmerom also took sufficient time to describe the fast changing situation in Ethiopia  and the significant steps taken to address past mistakes and shortcomings of the federal state. Among the important decisions taken was accepting the Algiers Agreement without preconditions and commitment to implement the final and binding ruling of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC). However, he did not hide his deep concern about the so-called hasty and treacherous steps taken towards what were called as "normalization" measures to "promote" people to people relations.

The EPDP Chairman considered the  obscure arrangement forged between the two governments  as blatant  insult  to the Eritrean people and meant to prolong in state control  the repressive and deceitful clique in Asmara. He defined peace not as the absence of war but the prevalence of rule of law, education, health services and general wellbeing of the people and added, "all of these and more are lacking  in Eritrea".

The EPDP Chairman said the situation in Ethiopia is still volatile and the outcome will for sure affect Eritrea and the rest of the region. He added that the Eritrean situation is also at cross-roads and needed massive public participation in giving it the right direction.

Besides the Ethio-Eritrean relations, the other major agenda item for Eritreans is the fragmented existence of the Eritrean opposition camp which still waiting for urgent action to mend it. He stressed that the choice is "to be or not to be" and that no time is left for us to take the appropriate measures for national salvation. "We act now or we perish, no other alternative", he concluded his call for urgent steps towards creating a viable national force to rescue an endangered national survival.