US Considers No-Fly Zone in Syria
October 19, 2012
The Obama administration says it is still considering a no-fly zone for northern Syria as cross-border shelling with Turkey threatens civilians on both sides.
With more Syrian tanks along the border, artillery fire between Syria and Turkey risks spreading violence, said
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
"The Turks have been very consistent that they are striking back strongly and proportionally every time they take an attack across the border," Nuland said. "This is extremely dangerous and goes to the point that we’ve been making about the danger of this conflict spilling beyond borders."
Turkey's response is about more than border security, said U.S. Institute of Peace analyst Steve Heydemann.
"It's also very clearly an effort on the part of the government in Ankara to change the political equation and to bring much greater pressure to bear not only on the Assad regime itself, but on the international community about what is at stake in this conflict and why the international community needs to do much more than it has," Heydemann said.
With more than 100,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, Washington is weighing the no-fly zone for areas of northern Syria controlled by Assad opponents.
"We continue to talk to partners about how, what, why, exactly the elements that might go into some of these things that people have proposed, including a no-fly zone, but we haven’t made any decisions at this stage," Nuland said.
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