Sisi says Kurd secession spells 'catastrophe'

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned the independence of Iraq's Kurdish region would be "catastrophic" and cause the Middle East to splinter along ethnic and religious lines, newspapers reported yesterday.
"The referendum currently demanded by Kurds is nothing... but the catastrophic beginning of the division of Iraq into small rival states, starting with a Kurdish state that will grow to include lands in Syria on which Kurds are living," Sisi told Egyptian newspapers.
The move was part of a "terrible plot" that was aimed at "redrawing the region on religious and ethnic grounds," he said in the remarks published yesterday.