BURHAN OZBILICI The Associated Press

Family members attend funeral prayers on Thursday in Ankara, Turkey, for Turkish army
officer Seckin Cil, who was killed in Sur, Diyarbakir on Wednesday. Six soldiers were killed
after PKK rebels detonated a bomb on the road linking the cities of Diyarbakir and Bingol
in southeastern Turkey as their vehicle was passing by, according to Turkeys state-run
Anadolu Agency.

ANKARA CAR BOMBING

Turkey blames
Kurdish militants
targeted buses of military
personnel. Ankaras second
bombing in four months
came as Turkey grappled
with an array of serious
issues, including renewed
fighting with Kurdish rebels, threats from Islamic
State militants and the
Syria refugee crisis.
Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu said a Syrian
national with links to Syrian
Kurdish militias carried out
the attack in concert with
Turkeys own outlawed
Kurdish rebel group, the
Kurdistan Workers Party,
or PKK, which has waged a
30-year insurgency. He also

blamed the government of

President Bashar Assad for
allegedly supporting the
Syrian Kurdish militia.
Turkish leaders vowed to
retaliate for the Ankara
attack, and the military said
its warplanes conducted
cross-border raids within
hours against PKK positions
in the Haftanin region of
northern Iraq, striking
about 60-70 rebels, including senior leaders. The
report could not be independently verified.
Turkey had been pressing
the U.S. in recent weeks to
cut off its support to the
Kurdish Syrian militias that

Syria truce may

demand new Iran deal

operate on the basis of

consensus, Iran, like any
other participant, will have
an effective veto over the
arrangements.
And that suggests the
U.S. and Iran will have to
find an accommodation.
Implementing a cessation of hostilities requires
the participation and compliance of those engaged in
hostilities, and that includes
Iran, State Department
spokesman John Kirby said.
He added, This does not
mean we are cooperating or
coordinating with Iran.
Kirby said the U.S. continues to see Iran as a destabilizing force in Syria
through its support of Assad
and Hezbollah. But he said
the U.S. has believed since
late last year that, for peace
to be possible, all stakeholders must be involved,
including those with influence on the armed opposition groups or forces fighting in support of the Assad
regime.
Syrias conflict started
with violent government
repression of largely peaceful protests five years ago,
but within months it became a full-blown rebellion
against Assad and a proxy
battle between his Shiitebacked government and
Sunni-supported rebels.

BY SUZAN FRASER

The Associated Press

ANKARA, TURKEY

Turkey on Thursday
blamed Kurdish militants at
home and in neighboring
Syria for a deadly bombing
in Ankara and it stepped up
pressure on the U.S. to
sever ties with the Syrian
Kurdish militia that has
been a key force against the
Islamic State in the complex Syrian conflict.
The blast at rush hour
Wednesday killed 28 people and wounded dozens
more in a car bombing that

BY MATTHEW LEE
AND BRADLEY KLAPPER

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The pursuit of peace in

Syria may require the United States and Iran to break
new ground in their increasingly comfortable
diplomatic relationship,
propelled by last years
nuclear accord and their
more recent prisoner swap.
Another taboo could be
shattered soon: Military
discussions.
Iran may be just one of 17
countries invited to the first
gathering Friday of a task
force the U.S. and Russia
are leading to forge a temporary truce in Syrias civil
war. But for the Obama
administration, Iran is like
no other country at the
table.
Washington considers
Tehran the worlds leading
state sponsor of terrorism.
And American officials
have long insisted they will
not cooperate militarily
with an Iranian government
that has deployed troops to
help keep Syrian President

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News

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 19 2016

CENTREDAILY.COM

Bashar Assad in power and

which continues to fund
and arm U.S.-designated
terrorist groups such as
Hamas and Hezbollah.
Administration officials
insist Irans presence at the
talks does not mean the two
countries are cooperating
or coordinating on military
matters.
Yet the ceasefire discussion in Geneva is intrinsically military. And it
could put the U.S. delegation in Geneva in the
uncomfortable position of
poring over battlefield
maps with members of
Irans military or its Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The officials present will
discuss which areas of Syria
will be covered by the truce.
They will debate which
rebel groups should be
spared from attack. They
will seek agreement on
what actions would constitute violations. And they
will discuss appropriate
responses.
On all these matters, Iran
can have a say. Because the
International Syria Support
Group and its task force

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IN A SERIES OF SIX WEEKLY

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Ankara regards as terrorists

because of their affiliation
with the PKK. President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
urged Washington to
choose between Turkey
and the Syrian Kurdish
group as its partner.
The U.S. already lists the
PKK as a terrorist group.
But in the complicated
tangle of friends and foes in
the Middle East, Washington relies heavily on the
Syrian Democratic Union
Party, or PYD, and its military wing, the Peoples
Protection Units, or YPG, in
fighting extremists from
the Islamic State.
The U.S. has rejected
Turkish pressure to brand
those Kurdish groups as
terrorists. Turkey also
wants the United States to
stop providing weapons to
the Syrian Kurdish militias,
arguing that the arms end
up with the PKK.
Turkish leaders pushed
that effort further Thursday.
Those who directly or
indirectly back an organization that is the enemy of
Turkey risk losing the title
of being a friend of Turkey, Davutoglu said in an
apparent reference to
Washington. It is out of
the question for us to excuse a terror organization
that threatens the capital of
our country.
Erdogan said the bombing would serve to make
Turkeys friends better
understand how strong are
the links between PYD and
YPG in Syrias north with
the PKK in Turkey.
The ambassadors of the
U.S., Russia, Britain, China
and France the five permanent U.N. Security
Council members were
invited separately to Turkeys Foreign Ministry and
briefed on the Ankara
bombing, a ministry official
said. Ambassadors to Germany and the Netherlands,
as well as the head of the
European Union delegation, also were invited.

AUSTRIA

EU warns that
asylum-seeker
caps are unlawful
BY LORNE COOK

The Associated Press

BRUSSELS

The European Unions

top migration official told
Austria Tuesday that its
plan to cap the number of
people who can apply for
asylum is unlawful, but
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann refused to
back down.
As EU leaders sought to
end their fragmented response to Europes biggest
refugee emergency since
World War II at a summit
meeting, the legal fight
with EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos took center
stage.
Legal opinions will be
answered by lawyers. Politically I say: well stick to
it, Faymann said as he
arrived at the summit in
Brussels.
More than 1 million people entered the EU in 2015
fleeing conflict or poverty,
and some 84,000 have
entered so far this year.
Overwhelmed by the numbers and frustrated by their
inability to agree on an
effective European response, some EU countries
have begun tightening
border controls or putting
up fences without warning
their neighbors.
In the latest in a series of
uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced
on Wednesday that it
would allow no more than
80 people a day to apply
for asylum at its southern

border points, as of Friday.

But Avramopoulos said
in a letter Thursday that
Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum
application that is made on
its territory or at its border.
The letter to Austrian
Interior Minister Johanna
Mikl-Leitner, seen by The
Associated Press, said a
ceiling on asylum-seekers
would be plainly incompatible with Austrias obligations under EU and
international law.
Mikl-Leitner has said
that a maximum 3,200
people a day would be
allowed to enter Austria
who are seeking international protection in a
neighboring country. That
is an allusion to Germany
which, along with Sweden,
has been the preferred
destination for most migrants.
But Avramopoulos also
warned that Austria should
not be allowing people to
travel through the country
if their aim is to apply for
asylum elsewhere.
European Parliament
President Martin Schulz
told the leaders that the
problem is that everyone
sees the situation from
their individual standpoint
and waits for the other to
move first in implementing
those necessary solutions.
Lamentably, this crisis
is exposing serious faultlines within our union,
Schulz said.

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PUBLIC LECTURES

PENN STATE LECTURES ON THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE

Invented: A Better
Tool Against Cancer

Cures,
Treatments,
Prevention
Medical research from
labs to hospitals to homes

TONY JUN HUANG

Professor of Engineering Science and
Mechanics and the Huck Distinguished Chair
in Bioengineering Science and Mechanics,
Penn State

Tony Huangs research team has invented a

safe, gentle, efficient, and inexpensive tool that, for the first time,
uses sound waves to remove cancer cells from blood samples without
damaging the cells. The new acoustic tweezers could improve the
diagnosis and treatment of cancer, HIV, and other diseases, and
could help in making treatment decisions. Hear about the ongoing
efforts to propel this invention from the research lab into wide use in
healthcare worldwide.

Saturday, February 20
11:00 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m.
100 Thomas Building, Penn State University Park Campus
814-867-5830 science@psu.edu
science.psu.edu/news-and-events/frontiers

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