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which side deserves military support.
• Ahead of a Group of Eight joint statement on Syria to be issued Tuesday, the U.S. remained committed to Obama's recent decision to arm the rebels and Russia did not budge from its weapons sales to President Bashar Assad's regime.
• Yet even as Obama found common ground among European allies against Putin at a G-8 summit in Northern Ireland, the U.S. president also struggled to convince some of those same allies to join him in sending armaments to the Syrian opposition.
• Syria, where at least 93,000 people have been killed in the conflict, has emerged as one of the intractable issues at the G-8 in Northern Ireland, where leaders of eight of the wealthiest economies gathered at a gleaming lakeside golf resort to hash over trade, tax and foreign policy challenges.
• "Of course, our opinions do not coincide, but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria, to stop the growth of victims, and to solve the situation peacefully," Putin said after meeting for two hours with Obama. "We agreed to push the parties to the negotiations table."
• ___

• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced at a ceremony on Tuesday that his country's armed forces are taking over the lead for security nationwide from the U.S.-led NATO coalition.
• The handover of responsibility is a significant milestone in the nearly 12-year war and marks a turning point for American and NATO military forces, which will now move entirely into a supporting role. It also opens the way for their full withdrawal in 18 months.
• "This is a historic moment for our country and from tomorrow all of the security operations will be in the hands of the Afghan security forces," Karzai said at the ceremony, held at the new National Defense University built to train Afghanistan's future military officers.
• Karzai said that in the coming months, coalition forces will gradually withdraw from Afghanistan's provinces as the country's security forces replace them.
• In announcing the fifth and final phase of a process that began at a November 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Karzai said "transition will be completed and Afghan security forces will lead and conduct all operations."

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