THE Paris attacks have triggered a churning in global geopolitics. Few terror events have managed to do this. The best example, and the only one thus far, is that of the American 9/11 terror strikes. Understandably the Paris attacks resonated the just-concluded G-20 Summit as France’s very own 9/11 dominated the Antalya event.
G-20 is not a security body but a platform of the world’s top 20 economies with a heavy economic agenda. And yet the G-20 Summit at Antalya, the Turkish resort on the Aegean Sea coast, suddenly turned into a security body and understandably so after the ghoulish terror attacks on Paris last Friday.
The main agenda of the G-20 summit turned out to be cobbling up a unified international war against Daesh and leaders at the summit vowed to just that.
But the big story emanating from the Antalya summit is the resurgence of Russia on the global stage as western countries, particularly France and the US, exhorted Russia to be on the same page as the West and join the international war against terror 2.0. Russian President Vladimir Putin flagged Saudi Arabia as one of the key countries whose support was vital as he told journalists in Antalya after the summit thus: “We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran.”
Russia itself has been at the receiving end of the fulminant brand of terrorism by Daesh, as a Russian passenger plane was bombed by Daesh earlier this month. This will be a dominating political narrative by the G-20 in the coming weeks and months as the West-led international community is seeking greater Russian cooperation and help in waging a decisive war against Daesh.
Notably, Russia and France have been punished by Daesh for taking on the bloodthirsty outfit by way of intense airstrikes on Daesh locations in Syria. On Nov. 17, Russia formally acknowledged that its plane had crashed because of a terror attack and that a homemade device with the power of 1.5kg of TNT was detonated during the flight.
But the proof the pudding will have to be in the eating, as one will have to watch how many western nations shake off their lackadaisical approach toward Daesh and take part in military operations against the terror outfit.
At the Antalya summit, Putin shared Russian intelligence data on Daesh financing with his G-20 colleagues. Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by Daesh and showed his G-20 colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft, which demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products. Interestingly, the Russian satellite photos showed how motorcades of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers.
However, if one talks about the key concrete deliverables from the G-20 Summit in Turkey, one can make a pithy list of five points on the basis of the joint statement which G-20 leaders agreed to.
1. Terrorism: G-20 leaders vowed to redouble their efforts to close down all sources of finance of Daesh and said they would share more information and work more closely together to freeze terrorist assets, criminalize terrorist financing and impose robust sanctions on those involved. Another important decision was to task intergovernmental body like the Financial Action Task Force, created to fight money laundering and terrorism financing, to identify new ways to crack down on funding and to implement targeted sanctions.
2. Refugee crisis: While the G-20 pledged to help tackle the refugee crisis stemming from Syria and Iraq, they refrained from announcing any new funding. Not to sound harsh and insensitive, they also urged all states to share the burden by offering to resettle refugees, providing humanitarian assistance and by ensuring “...that refugees can access services, education and livelihood opportunities.”
3. Global economy: The G-20 leaders promised another rollback on protectionist measures noting that the world trade had still not returned to pre-meltdown period. G-20 also reaffirmed its pledge to add 2 percent to global economic growth by 2018.
4. Youth unemployment: It reaffirmed its goal of reducing youth unemployment by 15 percent by 2025 as part of a strategy to invest in the skills needed for future jobs.
5. Corporate tax: G-20 leaders unveiled an ambitious plan to reduce tax avoidance by multinational firms and agreed to implement a detailed package of measures by OECD or Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to counter international tax avoidance. They also called upon countries to make their tax policies more transparent.
