The former deputy U.N. chief in Afghanistan said Thursday that he had proposed replacing the Afghan president with an interim government to avert a constitutional crisis if a fraud-marred election could not be resolved in time. He denied the suggestion that it was a plot against President Hamid Karzai.

Peter Galbraith, the highest-ranking American in the U.N. mission in Afghanistan at the time of the election last summer, disputed a report in the New York Times that he wanted to enlist the White House to force out Karzai. The newspaper said Karzai, who was under criticism for his leadership and for allegedly tolerating corruption, was enraged when he learned of the plan.

The Associated Press telephoned members of Karzai's staff for comment but none answered the phone. Karzai has complained that allegations of electoral fraud were overblown.

Galbraith told the AP that the interim government proposal went nowhere because the head of the U.N. mission, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, rejected it. Galbraith left the country four days after making the proposal and was fired by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Sept. 30. He has started U.N. proceedings to challenge his termination.

He disputed any suggestion that he had gone to the U.S. Embassy staff with a proposal to get rid of Karzai. "It didn't happen," he said.

Galbraith, who served as the first U.S. ambassador to Croatia, has been an active voice in foreign policy debates in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan since the 1990s and loudly sounded an alarm about electoral cheating while serving in Kabul.

He said he believes he was forced out because of his allegations that Eide was not aggressive enough in exposing fraud committed during the Aug. 20 ballot on behalf of Karzai. The Afghan leader was declared the winner after his last remaining challenger dropped out a few days before a scheduled November runoff.

In a telephone interview, Galbraith said there "was no plot" to oust Karzai unconstitutionally. Instead, Galbraith characterized the plan as a recommendation to avoid a constitutional crisis, which he believed would have developed had the election process dragged on into the coming year.

Karzai's term was to have ended on May 21 but was extended by the Afghan Supreme Court after the election commission postponed the vote from last spring until August, citing organizational problems.

Nearly three weeks after the election, the Karzai-appointed election commission announced that Karzai had won with 54 percent of the votes _ enough to avoid a runoff with his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.