So yesterday, the heads of the Group of 20 leading world economies arrived in the resort city of Antalya, in Turkey, for a two-day summit. The hotels housing the attendees were separated from the rest of the neighborhood by thousands of barricades. Only accredited visitors were given access to the area. The governor of Antalya, Muammer Türker, proudly announced they’d installed more than 350 new security cameras, and had also inaugurated license plate and facial recognition systems to prevent unauthorized access. The Coast Guard was deployed off the coast of Antalya to interdict threats from sea. Officials were considering establishing a no-fly zone over the area. Some 12,000 police and soldiers were deployed, and the Turkish military promised ’round-the-clock air defences. Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, who is coordinating the summit, affirmed that security was at its highest level:

“As some 35 or 36 delegations, including the world’s 20 most prominent countries, as well as heads of state, will be at the summit, we don’t see any security weakness.”

Moreover, according to Today’s Zaman,

Within the scope of the efforts to heighten security in the province, police have stepped up operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in a number of provinces across Turkey. Local police detained more than 60 people suspected of having links to the militant group throughout the past week.

Two indoor sports stadiums in Antalya have been turned into temporary police stations [Editor’s note: please pause to visualize that] and one of the international arrivals terminals within the Antalya Airport has been allocated for G-20 participants. The Belek resort has been declared a “high-security Red Zone area” until the end of the summit.

In addition to the police force, both the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) are on alert. The participants will also be protected by Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) and Turkish jetfighters.

Counterterrorism units carried out simultaneous raids in three districts of Antalya province early on Friday, finding what they described as ISIL materials, with two of those detained Russian and two of them women. Twenty ISIL suspects were detained. On the same day, police also detained 41 people at İstanbul Atatürk Airport on suspicion that they were going to join ISIL after a tip-off from a fellow passenger on their flight from Morocco. Twenty of them were deported and 21 are still being held.

In light of this, I choose to see the following video as utterly charming. But I warn you that you can see it another way, and if you do, you’ll just give in to total despair. We are helpless. They can get through anything. So don’t think about that. Just get on with your lives. If they get through, they get through; if you’re lucky, they’ll be sweet little furry Turkish terrorists, and your life, like mine, will be full of terrorist-cat love — even if the last time you wear an item of clothing without a trace of cat fur or cat barf will have been in your early 30s, and even if you wake up every morning at 5:00 am with seven fat balls of Turkish terrro-cat love sticking fourteen fat fore-paws in your face insistently because to hell with your other worries, Claire, breakfast is soooo late.

As for the summit itself, I’m not there, but it sounds as if what happened on the sidelines will determine all of our futures. 

Hope it went well.

Photo credit: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to the opening session of the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey on Sunday. RIA-Novosti / Kremlin Pool via AP