Turkey security forces ‘kill four IS militants near Syria border’

Since July, security forces in the country have been conducting anti-terrorist operations across Turkey after a ISIL suicide bombing killed dozens of people in Suruc, Sanliurfa province on July 20.

A group of a few 500 youths belonging to a Turkish nationalist association marched in Antalya, holding up effigies of U.S. President Barack Obama and denouncing USA interventions in the Middle East.

The war in Syria and extremist terrorism, including by IS, are already high on the G20 agenda but the Paris attacks that killed 129 people on Friday night have added new urgency to the talks.

“We hope that the events in Paris would properly arrange things and change the scale of priorities of our colleagues in Washington and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation capitals”, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters in Antalya, where a mammoth security presence blanketed a wide area around the summit site. Yet they crossed paths briefly during a group photo, shaking hands and exchanging a few words. Only once in its 66-year-history – after 9-11 – has NATO’s communal defence obligation been invoked.

But hopes for a major breakthrough were softened by gaping, open questions about the proposal – such as Assad’s future and the list of opposition groups to be deemed terrorists and barred from participating.