White House Calls Karzai Speech 'Genuinely Troubling'

The White House is looking to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clarify remarks he made blaming the international community for the controversy over last year's disputed election in his country.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Karzai's words "genuinely troubling," The Associated Press reported.

In a speech Thursday, Karzai accused the United Nations and other foreigners of trying to fix the presidential election to either prevent his second term or tarnish his win. The August election was forced into a runoff after an international commission supported by the U.N. threw out nearly a third of the votes over corruption complaints.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, met with the Afghan president Friday "to clarify what he meant by these remarks."

"Suggestions that somehow the international community was responsible for any irregularities in the recent election is preposterous," Crowley told the AP.