A limited no-fly zone is under consideration for Syria

(BRUSSELS2) The hypothesis of setting up a no-fly zone over Syria is no longer completely... excluded. It is even a working hypothesis on which the Allied General Staffs are working. But it would not be a global area, covering all of Syria, only a partial area, near the Turkish border for example. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Defense Minister, confirmed this on France 24. « Prohibiting any flight on Syrian territory means nailing the Syrian air force to the ground, it means going to war. (...) A no fly zone requires having an international coalition capable of doing so. The conditions are not met he explained. In contrast, " a particular area around which there could be a prohibition deserves to be studied. " France, which chairs the Security Council, intends to bring it together to try to go " as far as possible in humanitarian aid ».

The whole question is to have a legal framework to do so. " We cannot intervene in Syria without international legality. Without international legality, nothing can be done. » he had warned just before. A recent example is the establishment of no fly zones over Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991, at the initiative of the Americans, French and British. The Allies relied on a UN Security Council resolution, 688, even though that contained no explicit authorization to do so and though this legal basis was later challenged, to protect the Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the south.