The United States is considering imposing a no-fly zone over Syria, which would prevent Syrian aircraft from bombing rebel outposts and forces in the country. A similar no-fly zone in Libya is said to have greatly advanced the fall from power of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The possibility of such a move was broached during talks between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul Saturday. Clinton told reporters that the subject had come up, but that making such a decision cannot be done “without doing intense analysis and operational planning.”
The U.S. and Turkey, she added, were considering numerous ways to step up cooperation on dealing with Syria, and would establish a working committee to work on specific strategies. “We have been closely coordinating over the course of this conflict, but now we need to get into the real details of such operational planning. It needs to be across both of our governments,” Clinton said at a press conference.
Earlier this week, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said in an interview that setting a no-fly zone in Syria was “likely. I think we’re coming to the point, however, where the violence is getting so severe, I think that you’ll see a movement towards setting up those no-fly zones,” Cohen said in an interview on Bloomberg television.