Norway's Kai Eide has declined a second term of office as United Nations envoy to Afghanistan. Norwegian media report that he will serve out his term until the end of March and make way for a successor.

Mr Eide came in for fierce criticism in the wake of Afghanistan's presidential elections in August. Critics accused him of playing down the problems of electoral fraud which ultimately threatened to undermine the ballot.

The second-in-command of the UN mission in Afghanistan, American Peter Galbraith, was replaced after the Afghan vote due to a difference of opinion on how to handle the electoral fraud issue.