President Hamid Karzai has welcomed the view of US Vice President, Joe Biden who had said that the Taliban were not America's enemy. "We are very happy that America has announced that Taliban are not their enemy. This will bring peace and stability to the people of Afghanistan," Karzai said during a ceremony in Kabul. Karzai has agreed that if the United States wants to set up a Taliban address in Qatar to enable peace talks he will not stand in the way, as long as Afghanistan is involved in the process.

Not to forget that Biden's remarks were accompanied by serious objections in US and Afghanistan which caused him to say, "My views were not properly reflected." But this should not be surprising why Mr. Karzai backs the Biden's opinion. Indeed, Mr. Karzai had long ago called Taliban as his 'brothers' and urged them to abandon terrorism and return to their homes.

But his request fell on the deaf ears each time it was made. It has to be seen how Taliban will respond to Biden's friendly view. One thing that is very clear is that Taliban view all American as their enemies even those who have come to Afghanistan for providing services on humanitarian grounds.

2012 will be the year of negotiation and reconciliation with Taliban and green signal to them from Karzai and Biden is for promoting the same process. This year, US will focus on entering a political deal to end its ten-year involvement in Afghan war. And this not a bad thing to do as all wars end in negotiation and reconciliation. Without that, honorable withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan seems quite difficult.

With all the fuss about deal with Taliban, there is no need to be overly optimistic. Past experience shows that Taliban are rigid to solving issues through negotiations. In 90s, when Taliban entered Afghanistan, they betrayed certain Jihadi leaders by inviting them to negotiation tables.

All those invitations proved to be traps to kill and capture leaders who opposed them. In the last two years too, they have played certain tricks with Mr. Karzai. Last year a man who introduced himself as Taliban's representative turned out to a shopkeeper after looting funds set for reconciliation process. This year, the man who called himself Taliban's messenger was actually a suicide bomber and assassinated Karzai's peace envoy, Burhan-ud-Din Rabban.