The comments from Sisi, leader of the most populous Arab nation, indicate a growing fear in the region that the division of Iraq could further empower the turbans who have declared a "caliphate" on land seized in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
"The referendum that the Kurds are asking for now is in reality no more than the start of a catastrophic division of Iraq into smaller rival states," Egypt's MENA news agency quoted Sisi as saying during a meeting with local journalists.
The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north,
Massoud Barzani... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes...
, asked the region's parliament on Thursday to prepare the way for a referendum on independence.
Iraq's five million Kurds, who have ruled themselves in relative peace since the 1990s, have expanded their territory by up to 40 percent in recent weeks as the Sunni Islamist bully boyz seized vast stretches of western and northern Iraq.
Egypt, a traditionally regional diplomatic heavy weight, has been embroiled in domestic turmoil for three years since a 2011 uprising ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
Sisi said he warned the United States and Europe about the ambitions of the Islamic State holy warriors, which have shortened their name from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
"ISIL had a plan to take over Egypt," Sisi said. "I had warned the United States and Europe from providing any aid to them and told them they will come out of Syria to target Iraq then Jordan then Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
."