"This is not an American proposal," Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters at the United Nations about the alleged plans to appoint an official tasked with helping Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government improve the country's security and economy.

"We are not advocating, at this stage, the appointment of a high representative."

Her comments came a day after the US State Department said the United States both favored the idea and was seeking support from NATO allies.

"It's a way for us to better support the efforts of Afghanistan to provide for its own security and... provide a better economic future for the Afghan people," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Kelly added that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would discuss the coordinator's role during a meeting in Brussels on Friday with fellow foreign ministers from the transatlantic military alliance and other countries involved in the mission to stabilize Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, Rice appeared to step away from that position, though she acknowledged that "there needs to be improvement and urgently so in the coordination of the civilian component of this mission and the civilian assistance resources."

But the UN ambassador said that task fell under the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

"We may take actions with our partners in NATO and ISAF (the alliance's International Security Assistance Force) to strengthen UNAMA's ability to do that," Rice said.

The British newspaper Guardian reported on Monday that the policy was an attempt to circumvent Karzai, who has been plagued by charges of corruption and tarnished by widespread fraud in elections that eventually returned him to power.

Kelly insisted the role of any coordinator would not be "in any way an attempt to... undercut or bypass... the Afghan government."

He also denied the Guardian's report that the post was the brainchild of Richard Holbrooke, the US representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying he was unaware of who was behind the idea.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity on Tuesday, said "it's fair to say there's momentum building behind" the idea of a coordinator.

Officially, the international community already has such a coordinator in the form of Norwegian Kai Eide, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special representative to Afghanistan and the head of UNAMA.

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