Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called on Washington and Tehran to be flexible in their negotiations and warned that a return to fighting in the US–Iran war could have catastrophic consequences, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Speaking at a joint press conference in Cairo with Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar on Tuesday, November 3, Sisi said any settlement should address the core demands and concerns of both sides.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

“I call upon all parties involved in the current crisis between Iran and the United States to allow space for understanding and dialogue, and to reach a political consensus that addresses the core demands and concerns of all sides,” Sisi said, in remarks also reported by Egypt Today.

Source: Egypt Today via The Profiler

“I emphasize this approach today — before it is too late — because the alternative would entail catastrophic consequences for the region and for a world that has already endured a succession of crises over the past six years,” he said. He warned that new military action could cause serious humanitarian and economic damage far beyond the Middle East, and urged the parties to keep talking while there is still time.

Source: Egypt Today via The Profiler

Sisi pledged that Egypt will work with regional and international partners to ease tensions and help reach a peaceful settlement, and offered Egyptian support for the mediation efforts already under way. He also rejected any threat to the security of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, saying Cairo stands in solidarity with them.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

The Egyptian president described US President Donald Trump as a peacemaker, and said he was confident Trump would back the mediators working toward an agreement — an appeal aimed squarely at the one leader Cairo believes can close a deal.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

Qatar's mediators are currently awaiting Washington's and Tehran's answers on the latest proposals, as Awaaz Punjab reported: read the Qatar interim-deal story

The warning lands in the middle of a live mediation. Qatar continues to mediate between Washington and Tehran as tensions persist over the US naval blockade of Iranian ports and security in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said on Monday that it was still exchanging messages with the United States through mediators, and that reopening the strait depended on Washington lifting the blockade.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

Tehran has set out its conditions in full — sanctions relief, an end to the blockade and the release of frozen funds — as Awaaz Punjab reported: read the Iran deal-out-of-reach story

Why Egypt is speaking now

The war began on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran. Tehran struck back at Israel and US assets in the region until a ceasefire was agreed in April. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz on June 18, but its implementation has stalled over disagreements about security in the waterway — which is why diplomats now fear a slide back into open fighting.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

Egypt has more at stake than most. Its economy leans on the Suez Canal, and shipping's avoidance of the Red Sea during this war has cost canal revenue, while Egypt imports energy into a region where every escalation lifts fuel prices. It is not Sisi's first appeal: at the Egypt Energy Show in Cairo earlier in the war, he told Trump directly, “Nobody can stop the war in our region in the Gulf but you… Please help us stop the war. You are capable of doing so,” and cited market warnings that a barrel of oil could reach more than $200, warning of “twin shocks” of supply shortages and price rises that wealthy countries might absorb but middle-income and fragile economies could not.

Source: Reuters via TradingView

For the Gulf's huge workforce of migrants — including lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait — a restarted war is not an abstraction: the last round of fighting brought missile and drone threats to Gulf cities, disrupted flights and put remittances at risk. Sisi's solidarity pledge to the Gulf states, and his warning that the damage would reach “far beyond the Middle East”, speak to exactly that exposure.

Source: Anadolu Agency via Daily Imroz

What happens next

Sisi's intervention adds Arab weight behind Qatar's mediation at the moment it faces its hardest test: Washington and Tehran are due to respond to the latest proposals within about 36 hours, Iran's conditions remain unmet, and the post-midterm political map in Washington has just changed. Cairo's message — settle now, on terms both sides can live with, before the window closes — is the region's case stated as bluntly as it has been all war.

Source: Egypt Today via The Profiler