Turkey summit could turn G-20 into a political player

The Antalya Summit is likely to be the first G-20 Summit during which a major political crisis is debated. Since 1999 when the G-20 was first established, its annual summits have generally focused on seeking solutions to global economic problems by bringing together the most influential industrialized and developing economies. One of the reasons for this was the fact that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council did not want to dilute its veto power by discussing political crises anywhere other than their own stage. 

It's worth remembering that after so many years the U.N. has been unable to take any action against Israeli governments for years because of the U.S. veto in the Security Council. It has also been unable to take any action against the Syrian government because of the Russian and Chinese vetoes. The great powers do not want to lose this leverage.

Perhaps that status quo in the U.N. will not change for some time. But when Turkey, as the host country of the Antalya Summit taking place on Nov. 15-16, said President Tayyip Erdo?an would discuss the Syria crisis - and the related problems of terrorism and refugees - at the G-20 Summit's opening dinner, no significant objection was heard. Indeed, the Syrian civil war since early 2011 has started to seriously affect the global economy and global politics, due to the terrorism it has given birth to and the refugees at the gates of the EU after exceeding saturation point in Turkey.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to deploy Russia's air force in Syria in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime, U.S. President Barack Obama was forced to break his much-criticized "indeterminate" position. His call to have talks about Syria during the G-20 Summit shows the level of...