WASHINGTON - Afghanistan's postwar future was on the agenda as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met Friday with Lakhdar Brahimi, who is in charge of all U.N. operations in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration is looking to the United Nations to take on a major role. But Brahimi has registered some skepticism.

After peacekeeping disasters in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda, he urged the Security Council this week not to rush in with peacekeepers when the U.S.-led military campaign ends.

"Afghanistan is a very difficult country," Brahimi said. `It's a very proud people and they don't like to be ordered around by foreigners. They don't like to see foreigners there, especially in military uniforms."

On another troubled front, an Afghan opposition leader said Thursday he vehemently opposes Secretary of State Colin Powell's suggestion that moderate elements of the ruling Taliban militia might have a role in a future government in Kabul.

The Taliban should be tried in court _ not allowed to govern, said Ravan Farhadi, Afghanistan's U.N. ambassador, who represents the former Afghan government.

Farhadi stated the opposition's position in a note to Richard N. Haass, the State Department's director of policy planning, who is Powell's coordinator for Afghanistan.

"The Taliban have given not only shelter to (Osama) bin Laden but they facilitated his international terroristic acts," Farhadi told reporters after handing the note to Haass in a U.N. corridor in New York. "We don't agree with Mr. Powell because we think that the Taliban leaders ... need to be (on) trial in a court."

The paper accused the Taliban of committing genocide and crimes against humanity and of providing training centers and safe haven for terrorists.

"In no way they could be considered as eligible for the future political setup of a democratic Afghanistan," the statement concluded.

Farhadi represents the ousted Afghan government led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, which is still recognized by the United Nations but not by the United States.

It is part of the northern-based opposition alliance fighting the Taliban.

On the U.S.-led coalition that is on the offensive against the Taliban, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday defended the secondary roles played by some NATO allies.

The coalition is unlikely to unravel, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference. But he said the campaign is a flexible one, involving "different nations at different times doing different things."

"As far as we're concerned, that's fine," Rumsfeld said.

And yet, he told reporters, "A month from now, I expect someone somewhere might report that a particular nation is not doing something or has stopped doing something."

As a result, Rumsfeld said, "The speculation could be: Is the coalition coming apart or unraveling?"

Britain has been most visibly alongside the United States, joining in missile attacks on the Taliban.

Robert Bell, an assistant secretary-general of the NATO military alliance, told reporters Thursday that Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Spain and Italy all are actively participating in the U.S. military campaign.

Bell, a former National Security Council official, said some elite U.S. peacekeeping units in the Balkans may be assigned to the campaign in Afghanistan.

The NATO allies would pick up any slack in the region.

But while Bell described the allies' support as steadfast, he said if the United States takes military action against terrorism in other countries, NATO support would depend on the kind of evidence the United States provided.

At the State Department, Philip Reeker, the deputy spokesman, said the United States was already sharing with NATO allies information and intelligence about terrorism beyond Afghanistan.

Reeker said the sharing would continue.

In the meantime, former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy was sharply critical of the dominant U.S. role in the campaign. He said in New York that it was not acceptable for all decisions to emanate from the United States.

Axworthy said the key nations in the coalition should meet soon and review the mission against the Taliban, its duration and an "exit strategy" _ a plan to leave the South Asian country.

The Canadian said Western governments were making secret arms shipments to the northern alliance, a faction that has fought the Taliban. Axworthy said the alliance's record on human rights was indistinguishable from the Taliban's.

And in Belgium, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said the European Union supports only targeted attacks against terrorists and their supporters.