KABUL—Afghan President Hamid Karzai suspended talks with the U.S. about a long-term American military presence and pulled his envoys from planned peace negotiations with the Taliban on Wednesday, protesting the unexpectedly high-profile opening of a Taliban office in Qatar a day earlier.

Mr. Karzai's moves could jeopardize U.S. plans to maintain a residual troop presence in Afghanistan after the coalition's mandate ends next year. They also create a new hurdle for American efforts to bring the Afghan government and its Taliban foes to the negotiating table and find a political solution to the 12-year war.

U.S. officials initially said that American diplomats would travel to Qatar to meet with the Taliban for bilateral talks as soon as Thursday. That plan, too, appeared to have been put on hold following Mr. Karzai's statements, U.S. officials said.

The officials, however, played down the rift with Mr. Karzai, saying the Afghan president needed a way to lash out, but that Washington expected the resumption of the security talks, which focus on a U.S. military mission after 2014. Mr. Karzai has leveled criticism at the U.S. and its coalition partners in the U.S. in the past to gain leverage or express discontent, and by doing so has won some concessions.

"We wanted to send a clear and significant signal of our dissatisfaction," a senior Afghan official said Wednesday.