Former UN envoy to Afghanistan Peter Galbraith has dismissed allegations by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that foreign observers were involved in a plot to put a puppet government in power during last year's disputed elections, the BBC has said.

An independent commission, which was monitoring the results of the August 2009 presidential elections in Afghanistan, declared the polls rigged and ordered a partial recount of the votes. More than a million votes were rejected as a result, mostly for Karzai, who then accused Peter Galbraith and the EU mission head, Gen. Phillippe Morillon, of "massive fraud" and attempts to blacken his name.

"This wasn't fraud by Afghans but the fraud of foreigners, the fraud of Galbraith, or [head of the EU's observers Philippe] Morillon, and the votes of the Afghan nation were in the control of an embassy," he said.

Karzai was declared the winner of the polls in November, when his only challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the second round due to the president's refusal to dismiss the nation's top election official and take other action to prevent fraud.

Galbraith, a former US diplomat, who was dismissed last year after alleging that the UN was not doing enough to combat fraud in the election, told the BBC Karzai's allegations were "absurd".

"At first I thought it was an April Fool's joke but I realised I don't have that kind of warm, personal relationship with President Karzai that he would do that," he was quoted as saying on the BBC website.

MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti)