Waheed Omer, Karzai's spokesman, said that parts of the Afghan president's speech had been misunderstood.

"Obviously there is a difference of opinion on certain issues between Afghanistan and its international partners".

Karzai said " he favoured the Florida method of vote counting and that is what he used".

"There was fraud in presidential and provincial council elections - no doubt that there was a very widespread fraud, very widespread," he said.

"But Afghans did not do this fraud. The foreigners did this fraud."

Peter Galbraith, the former UN head of mission in Afghanistan, said that the remarks were "extraordinary" and that he was only interested in pipeline and oil deals.

"Anyway, what are you going to do about it"? Karzai asked.

"Your cowardly President [Obama] creeps in here like a thief in the night and runs away again before dawn" he said.

"We don’t take orders from cowards in this country" Karzai concluded.