AP News in Brief
Afghan president suspends talks with US on security deal to protest US-Taliban negotiations
• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan president on Wednesday suspended talks with the United States on a new security deal to protest the way his government was being left out of initial peace negotiations with the Taliban meant to find ways to end the nearly 12-year war.
• The move by Hamid Karzai could derail the peace process even before it has begun.
• In a terse statement from his office, Karzai said negotiations with the U.S. on what American and coalition security forces will remain in the country after 2014 have been put on hold.
• The statement followed an announcement Tuesday by the U.S. and the Taliban that they would pursue bilateral talks in Qatar before the Afghan government was brought in.
• "In view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process, the Afghan government suspended the negotiations, currently underway in Kabul between Afghan and U.S. delegations on the bilateral security agreement," Karzai's statement said.
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Obama's Berlin speech expectations: Big shoes to fill, including his own
• BERLIN (AP) -- Five years and 50 years. As President Barack Obama revisits Berlin, he can't escape those anniversaries and the inevitable comparisons to history and personal achievement.
• With his own 2008 speech at Berlin's Victory Column and former President John F. Kennedy's 1963 historic denunciation of the Soviet bloc as markers, Obama will use an address at the city's Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday to renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles.
• The White House said Obama will draw attention to his plan for a one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, rekindling a goal that was a centerpiece of his early first-term national security agenda. Obama will also hold an afternoon news
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