19:39 Nov. 15, 2015
Putin and Obama hold talks at G20 as efforts intensify to defeat Islamic State...
POSTER SAYS THAT THIS IS NOT THE REAL OBOZO TOO MUCH GRAY HAIR AND HIS CHIN IS NOT POINTED ENOUGH....AND CERTAINLY NOT PUTIN..... DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THEY ARE AT WAR??? THESE AHOS ARE LAUGHING...
President Barack Obama, center, talks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, center right, as they arrive for a group photo with other leaders for the G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015
Calls for unity increase in wake of terror attacks claimed by ISIL in French capital
World leaders gathered in Turkey for the annual G20 summit with the fight against terror high on the agenda. Hand-in-hand with that went the battle against Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIL. The extremist group claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris on Friday night which claimed some 120 lives. From US President Obama, a defiant statement.
Barack Obama, US President: "As was true with the terrible attacks that took place in Ankara, the killing of innocent people based on a twisted ideology is an attack not just on France, not just on Turkey, but it's an attack on the civilised world."
Attempts by a US-led coalition to eliminate ISIL have been made largely in Syria. The Middle Eastern nation has been in a state of war for some four years. ISIL, as well as other more moderate forces, have been trying to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But support for Assad in recent months has come in the form of a bombing campaign by Russia. The Kremlin says it has been targeting Islamic State and has not been seeking to prop-up the regime of its ally, the Syrian president. But the air strikes have heightened tensions with the US, which has stated clearly that it sees no role for Assad in Syria's future.
John Kerry, US Secretary of State: "Asking the opposition to trust Assad or to accept Assad's leadership is simply not a reasonable request; and it is literally therefore a non-starter. And even if you wanted to, my friends, even if you made the worst deal with the devil, as one says, and said 'well that's what you have to do to make this process go forward', I got news for you; it will not stop."
Against the backdrop of those disagreements, the White House said ahead of the G20 that Obama had no plans to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. But on the sidelines of the summit in Antalya, the two did sit down for talks.
US President Barack Obama, left, speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, prior to the opening session of the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 15 2015 (AP)
Analysts have suggested that Moscow may be trying to improve its standing in the iternational community by taking advantage of the world's renewed focus on fighting ISIL. Russia has been incresingly isolated from the West since it annexed Ukrainian territory in 2014 and began backing militants in Ukraine's eastern regions.
Vladimir Putin, Russian President: "We do understand well that winning against the terror threat and helping millions of those who lost their homes is only possible by uniting the efforts of the whole international community. And concerning the terror threat, we all have seen the nightmare that happened just recently in Paris. We sympathize with people who were hurt. But we remain steadfast behind uniting efforts to fight the terror threat effectively."
Calls for the West to work more closely with Russia have of late been growing - in the wake of the Islamic State's terror attacks in Paris, those calls may now be increasingly difficult to resist.
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