Obama Speaks In Berlin 50 Years After JFK

President Barack Obama has pushed for a reduction of the world's nuclear stockpiles in a speech at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate.

His address comes 50 years after John F. Kennedy's famous Cold War speech in this once-divided city.

Mr Obama has said he was proud to pay tribute to a city that was a symbol of freedom.

"It is citizens who choose whether to be defined by a wall or whether to tear it down," he said.

"We can say here in Berlin, here in Europe, our values won," he added, speaking from a stage that had a row of bullet-proof glass.

In a wide-ranging speech listing challenges facing the world, Mr Obama said he wanted to re-ignite the spirit that Berlin displayed when it fought to reunite itself during the Cold War.

He promised to confront climate change, a danger he called "the global threat of our time".

Mr Obama met with Angela Merkel

"Today's threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on," he said.

"And I come here to this city of hope because the test of our time demands the same fighting spirit that defined Berlin a half-century ago".

Mr Obama has called on Russia to agree strategic nuclear weapons cuts of up to a third and to also rein in strategic atomic arms. He said he wanted to move beyond a Cold War posture.

The president had previously called for reductions to the stockpiles.

But by addressing the issue in a major foreign policy speech, he is signalling a desire to rekindle an issue that was a centrepiece of his early first-term national security agenda.

Mr Obama's call for cooperation with Russia on the nuclear issue comes at a time of tension between Washington and Moscow, which are supporting opposite sides in Syria's civil war.

The US leader discussed non-proliferation with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they met this week on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

The secret surveillance programmes have stirred anger

Mr Obama's Brandenburg Gate speech is a momentous occasion.

On June 26, 1963, Mr Kennedy addressed a crowd of 450,000 in Berlin to repudiate communism and famously declare "Ich bin ein Berliner", German for "I am a Berliner".

In 1987, another US president, Ronald Reagan, delivered a famous address when he challenged then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

He famously said: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Mr Obama himself gave a major speech in Berlin - but not at the Brandenburg Gate – in 2008, when he was a hopeful presidential candidate. At the time, an estimated 200,000 people who came to see him.

This time, his visit to Berlin was overshadowed by the scandal over secret US surveillance programmes.

Moscow and Washington could not bridge differences on Syria during the G8

The president, who also met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, once again defended the NSA operations, which have been unveiled in leaks to the The Guardian and The Washington Post.

He said "lives had been saved" and about 50 terror plots thwarted, in comments that echoed similar remarks by the NSA chief, General Keith Alexander, to Congress.

Before Mr Obama had even made his call for nuclear reductions, Moscow said it wanted other powers as well as Russia and the US to be involved in any discussions about further nuclear arms cuts.

"It's necessary to bring other countries that possess nuclear weapons into the process," said Yuri  Ushakov, Mr Putin's senior foreign policy aide.

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