CAIRO -- The Egyptian press accused the United States Saturday of working for the secession of south Sudan by overriding a three-year-old Arab initiative to end the country's 19-year civil war in favor of its own.

"The major objective of the United States is to eliminate the Egyptian-Libyan influence and to abort their initiative and to separate the south of Sudan from the north on any basis," columnist Salama Ahmed Salama wrote in the state-owned ***Al-Ahram ***daily. He attributed the policy to "the discovery of petroleum in (southern) Sudan which attracted the interests of Americans and Europeans."

Salama slammed Washington for excluding Cairo from peace talks in Kenya between Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which led to a breakthrough agreement late last month, despite its own efforts to sponsor a settlement since 1999, AFP reported.

"Egypt should have participated. Instead, Egypt was completely excluded because of American pressure," the columnist wrote of the Kenyan talks held under the aegis of a regional grouping of East African states.

The protocol signed in Nairobi between Khartoum and the SPLA grants the south a six-year period of administrative autonomy, at the end of which the mainly animist and Christian south will decide in a referendum if they wish to remain part of Sudan or secede.

After the signing of the accord, Egypt reaffirmed its opposition to any partition of the south.