President Karzai’s recent statements, made in an interview with Washington Post, are back in the spotlight again. He does not seem to be improving relations between Kabul and Washington by his declarations. Moreover, his views regarding the issue of terrorism put him in collision course with Afghan people.

Karzai said in the interview that al-Qaeda is “more a myth than a reality” and the majority of the United States’ prisoners here were innocent. He is certain that the war was “for the US security and for the Western interest.”

To Afghans’ unmitigated chagrin, the presidential palace always stated about Taliban insurgents optimistically. As a result, dozens of high-profile Taliban detainees were released despite US protests and the body of Mulavi Raqib, a former Taliban’s refugee minister who was shot dead in Pakistan last month, was carried by Afghan’s helicopter. Moreover, Karzai made a phone call to Raqib’s father to express his condolence and called him “martyr”.

Apparently, Karzai expresses his worry about civilian casualties and says, “The relationship has been at a low point for a long time, at least since 2007, as far as Afghanistan is concerned and the Afghan president is concerned. It began to deteriorate with the civilian casualties and the neglectful attitude toward my complaints about it. In 2007, we had the most serious incident of civilian casualties in Herat province of Afghanistan, when things turned very difficult between us, and since then it has not recovered.”

But Afghan people criticize the presidential palace for raising no voice against the casualties made by Taliban insurgents, particularly in the recent incidents which led to the murder of 21 Afghan soldiers. The critic was mounted when President Karzai did not attend the soldiers’ funeral ceremony. A question that, why Afghan government does not take a serious action with an effective mechanism against the insurgents, remains unanswered.

Security pact also remains a hot issue. Hamid Karzai holds out against signing the pact which would permit a residual US force to remain in the country beyond 2014, despite Afghans’ repeated urges. He says regarding the pact, “I have a condition for the BSA — the launch of the peace process — because I no longer believe that the continuation of this situation in the name of the war on terror in our villages is going to bring an end to fighting in Afghanistan. I’ve said this a long time back, and I’ll continue to insist on that.’’

Mrs. Sima Samar, the head of Independent Human Rights Commission, says that President Karzai will have to sign the BSA and unluckily Afghanistan has no other option. She adds that Karzai, for knowing American’s wrong policy or whatever, should have raised his voice or criticized earlier.