Valdai Club

Antalya is probably the last chance for all the global and regional powers to agree on joint action. It is time certain geopolitical actors tempered their ambitions, including in regard to Ukraine, and start working together to defeat the Islamic State.

Friday, November 13, 2015 will go down in history as the day when France was hit by Europe’s deadliest terrorist attack – one possibly comparable with September 11, a similar assault that targeted America.

As we can recall, it was after those attacks that the United States went to war with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and actually destroyed bin Laden, but even so Afghanistan still remains under the control of terrorist groups.

One can imagine what can happen next: just like after September 11, NATO members can join forces with France the same way they sided with the United States in 2001, invoking Article 5 of NATO's Washington Treaty which stipulates collective self-defense in case of attack on one of the member states.

It is possible that NATO will fight ISIS in Syria; this could open up opportunities for reaching an antiterrorist cooperation agreement with Russia. Unfortunately, this never happened in 2001 when Putin proposed it to President Bush; it can be done now.

We must keep in mind that it ISIS is impossible to defeat, not with its extensive network covering nearly every critical location in Africa and the Middle East.

In Germany, the situation is further aggravated by the arrival of over a million Syrian refugees in the last three months; half of them have not even registered yet after crossing the border illegally.

Terrorists could have arrived with them, and can now be planning attacks against Germany.

These people need to be caught and neutralized, which is German security agencies’ job.

German politicians, on their part, are working hard to prevent panic and avoid setting the German population against the refugees who have fled from the Islamic State and the war in Syria.

But the situation is developing in a very dramatic manner and most discussions are quite emotional.

The G-20 summit now opening in Antalya can become historic because, in contrast to G-7, which excludes Russia and China, G-20 has met as a kind of new global government with even more powers than the UN. G-20 is to make decisions on the joint fight against international terrorism.

Antalya is probably the last chance for all the global and regional powers to agree on joint action. I think it is time certain geopolitical actors tempered their ambitions, including in regard to Ukraine, and start working together to defeat the Islamic State – the biggest challenge for the West and Russia. If we do not stop it, this ‘state’ will continue seizing land and weapons, and eventually – God forbid – might lay its hands on a nuclear bomb.