WASHINGTON, DC – The world was once again unified over the weekend not only for the condemnation of the terrorist attacks in Paris but also for the gathering of the world’s top 20 leaders at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey. The G20 summit is held annually as the premier forum for leaders to discuss topics such as restoring global growth, climate change, the refugee crisis, and promoting international economic cooperation. But the 2015 G20 Summit was dominated with discussions on the fight against terrorism.

Founded under the Turkish term presidency of the G20, this year’s summit introduced the first ever W20 engagement group that focuses on promoting gender equality and balanced growth trend. Among the attendees at the various engagement groups were the world’s top 20 leaders and leaders of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, and World Trade Organization as well as Turkish Heritage Organization’s (THO) President, Halil Danismaz.
As the only representative of a Turkish-American organization, Halil Danismaz participated in events over the weekend including various G20 Engagement Groups, the B20 Summit, and the G20 Leader Summit where he was able to “meet business world leaders and international government officials” who also attended the weekend’s events.

The goal of THO as an organization is to help strengthen overall Turkish-US relations. The meeting between President Obama and President Erdogan Sunday morning regarding their cooperation as two of the main actors in the refugee crisis as well as Syrian conflict, reinforced the positive development of relations between both nations. President Obama stated, “the discussion we had today I think was very helpful in helping to continue to coordinate the work that we’re doing together to help to fortify the borders between Syria and Turkey that allow Daesh to operate.” In reference to the optimistic talks, Halil Danismaz remarked, “Presidents of Turkey and USA had a very productive meeting this morning. We will see a positive progress on Turkish-US relations.”

As the summit came to conclusion, the leaders prepared a joint statement pointing out five key points of agreement: terrorism, refugee crisis, global economy, youth unemployment, and corporate tax. According to the Communique released after the G20 Summit, there were pledges from the world’s 20 top leaders to “use all of their policy tools to tackle uneven economic growth that falls short of expectations.”

Other issues making headlines in the document include efforts in making global growth more inclusive, addressing the global refugee crisis, strengthening the global financial system, supporting sustainable development, and addressing climate change among other concerns. Cooperation will need to continue between global leaders to help tackle these key issues that are affecting nations worldwide. As Turkey and the US are two major players not only in global governance but particularly the Syrian conflict a united front on these issues may be in the near future.