The German government managed to balance its books for the first time since 1969 in 2014 and a year ahead of target, the finance ministry said Tuesday.

Originally, the government had been penciling in a small budget deficit of 6.5 billion euros ($7.7 billion) for 2014.

Ukraine said on Tuesday that a peace summit President Petro Poroshenko had hoped to convene to end his ex-Soviet republic's separatist uprising would require more preparation and talks with pro-Russian rebels.

The foreign ministers from Moscow and Kiev and their German and French counterparts met in Berlin on Monday to try to save a leadership meeting Poroshenko had proposed holding in the Kazakh capital Astana on Thursday.

Beer sales in Germany rose for the first time in eight years in 2014 as warm weather and the World Cup football championships increased Germans' thirst for their national drink, the country's brewers said Monday. 

The German beer sector "can look back at a successful year in 2014, when sales exceeded the previous year's figures," the German brewers' federation said in a statement.  

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas urged an anti-Islamic movement to call off a planned march on Monday, saying it had no right to "exploit" the killings by jihadists in Paris.

Maas, the most outspoken German cabinet member against the so-called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" (PEGIDA), told the daily Bild in its issue to be published Monday that he found the right-wing populist group "hypocritical".

The bloodshed in France could signal the start of a wave of attacks in Europe, according to communications by Islamic State leaders intercepted by U.S. intelligence, German newspaper Bild reported Sunday.

Shortly after the attacks in Paris, the U.S. National Security Agency had intercepted communications in which leaders of the jihadist group announced the next wave of attacks, the tabloid said, citing unnamed sources in the U.S. intelligence services.

A 24-year-old German suspected of joining Islamic State jihadists in Syria was arrested Saturday, months after he returned from the war-ravaged country. 

The suspect allegedly arrived in Syria in October 2013 and was a member of the group until he returned home in November, German federal prosecutors said in a statement.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the purpose of the private meeting was "to express his gratitude for their longstanding and strong relationship."

The sultan has not returned to Oman since traveling overseas for medical tests six months ago for suspected cancer, stirring fears over stability in his Gulf country.

Germany's new anti-Islamic PEGIDA movement plans to rally again on Monday, when analysts expect its ranks to swell by thousands following this week's bloody jihadist violence in France.

Leaders of the so-called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident" have asked marchers to wear black armbands and observe a minute's silence for "the victims of terrorism in Paris".

A meeting between French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel planned in Strasbourg Sunday has been postponed after a series of attacks in Paris, said a spokesman for European parliament president Martin Schulz.

Armin Machmer, the spokesman for Schulz, who organized the meeting, said it has been delayed "because of the events" in France, where twin hostage dramas were playing out in the wake of the massacre Wednesday of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly.

A large and growing majority of Germans believe Islam does not belong in the Western world and more than half see it as a threat, a poll published Thursday showed.

In a survey conducted in November, before Wednesday's massacre by Islamist gunmen at a French satirical paper or widespread media coverage of a new German anti-migrant movement, 61 percent of non-Muslim Germans said Islam had no place in the West.