Obama: Refugee crisis should not be equated with terrorism

It was the tenth summit since the inception of G20 in 1999 and held under the Turkish leadership.

(RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP).

“The fight against terrorism is a major priority for all our countries and we reiterate our resolve to work together to prevent and suppress terrorist acts through increased worldwide solidarity and cooperation”, the leaders, who included US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said in a joint statement. The 2015 G-20 Leaders Summit is…

Concerned about the “acute and growing flow of foreign terrorist fighters”, G20 leaders said in a statement they had agreed to step up border controls and aviation security.

President Barack Obama on Monday firmly rejected calls for a shift in USA strategy against the Islamic State following the Paris attacks, saying Republicans who want to send ground troops into the volatile region are “talking as if they’re tough” but fail to understand the potentially grave consequences.

Putin and Obama met Sunday for about half an hour on the sidelines of the two-day Group of 20 summit It was their first conversation since Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, and a weekend agreement between the two governments on trying to forge a diplomatic resolution of Syria’s civil war. The attacks in Paris, along with earlier bombings in Lebanon and Turkey, as well as the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, indicated that the Islamic State has grown bold enough to strike a variety of targets far away from its base in Syria and Iraq.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also joined Germany in calling a UN-backed donors conference for February in London to help pay the soaring costs of the refugee crisis.

However, the White House said the 30-minute chat focused on Syria and the need for Syrians to lead a political transition. They said they look for improvement over the next year and expressed hope that the global economy could grow by 3.6% in 2016, which would be the highest rate since 2011.

129 people have died in the aftermath of a string of terror attacks in Paris, while 99 out of 352 injured are in a critical condition, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins stated during a news briefing following a string of terror attacks in France’s capital.

Criticism of Obama’s strategy for confronting the Islamic State has intensified since the Paris attacks as reaction to the large number of dead and wounded across that city generated an emotional response inside of France and around the world.

In his remarks in Turkey, Obama said Republicans should follow the example of former President George W. Bush in not treating the fight against terrorism as a war on Muslims. Obama will meet with European allies at the end of the summit to try to shore up their common front. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the need to cut off the Islamic State’s ability to generate revenue through oil smuggling. But he insisted his strategy of building an global coalition to launch airstrikes, while training and equipping more moderate forces on the ground, is the best approach. He said his critics haven’t presented viable changes to the U.S. strategy.