KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday he could remain in power after his term ends and until August elections, provided it was agreed by the Supreme Court or via a consensus of tribal leaders.

Karzai's term ends on May 21, but with presidential elections now set for August, there is intense debate about who should rule the country in the meantime.

"The legitimacy of the president after 21 May is an issue which the president himself cannot decide," he told a gathering of women to mark International Women's Day in Kabul.

"If I'm to stay from 21 May to August, I shall stay legitimately... and if am to leave, it will be through legitimate means," he said.

Afghanistan's electoral authorities delayed what will be only the country's second presidential elections from April to August because of logistical and security problems in the war-ravaged nation.

Karzai, under huge pressure from the United Nations, the United States and other Afghan allies to support the August date set by the election commission, caused a stir last week when he called for an April ballot.

But on Saturday the president told a press conference he accepted the election commission's decision.

The president said that he had already started consultations with various parties on how to tackle the problem.

"I'm in talks. Every day I'm having meetings with the international community... with our elders, our lawyers. I assure you, we'll go to the elections legitimately," Karzai told the gathering.

"I won't govern even one more day after my legitimate term is ended. And be assured that I won't just leave, unless under a mechanism," he added.

Opposition leaders, including some former members of Karzai's cabinet, planning to run for office have called on him to hand over power to an interim administration after May.

But Karzai on Saturday dismissed the demand as unconstitutional.

The Afghan leader won a 55 percent majority in 2004 presidential polls and has hinted that he will run for a second term.

"The more of you run (for president) the more the vote will be divided which is good for me and I'll win again," he joked as a woman from the crowd said "we have a woman candidate."

Two of Karzai's former finance ministers, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Anwar-ul Haq Ahadi, as well as his former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, have suggested they will stand for the strife-torn nation's top post.

Analysts say the candidates might pose a threat to Karzai's chances for a second term as his popularity has been severely damaged by a failure to curb an increasingly bloody insurgency and rein in corruption.

Seven years after they were ousted from government, Taliban are still actively waging an insurgency aimed at toppling the Western-supported Karzai administration.

There is a 70,000-strong international force in Afghanistan trying to defeat the insurgency. The United States, Kabul's main backer, has said it will deploy 17,000 additional troops in the summer. --AFP