World leaders arrive for G20 Summit in Turkey

Antalya, Nov 15: With Paris attacks clouding the G20 Summit, US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today arrived in this Turkish coastal town to join other world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the meeting that would be dominated by talks on terror.

Modi, who reached here late last night from London after his three-day visit to the UK, tweeted he would "meet world leaders and discuss global economic and security issues".

The official economic agenda is likely to be overshadowed by a series of intense meetings the world leaders will hold on the margins of the Summit on the Syrian civil war, the refugee crisis in Europe, the Paris attacks and the growing threat of the terror group ISIS.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim arrived here last night.

Also to arrive yesterday were Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy, Korean President Park Geun-hye, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, South African President Jacob Zuma and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff also arrived yesterday.

After the opening ceremony, the Summit would host sessions on development, climate change, the global economy and growth.

A dinner meeting to discuss terrorism and refugees was already planned for this evening, with the theme: 'Global Challenges: Terrorism and the Refugee Crisis'.

The three main themes of this year's G20 Summit are "inclusiveness, investment and implementation".

Within this framework, strengthening the global economy and making it more inclusive, deepening the dialogue and cooperation between G20 countries and Low Income Developing Countries (LIDCs), sustainable development, increasing investments, and implementation and follow-up on G20 commitments will be main topics discussed in the Summit.

The Summit will commence with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's welcoming ceremony of the G20 Leaders and will continue with a working lunch in which the topics of development and climate change will be discussed.

On the last day of the two-day Summit tomorrow, financial regulations, the international tax agenda, anti-corruption actions and IMF reforms will be evaluated in the "Increasing Resilience" session.

Trade and energy issues will be discussed during a working lunch, after which the Antalya Action Plan will be adopted.

The Summit will conclude with a presentation given by the Chinese President, who will assume the 2016 G20 Presidency.

PTI