Erdogan: U.N. Would Have to Decide on Syria No-Fly Zone

Any decision on an eventual no-fly zone over Syria would have to be made by the United Nations, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted on Friday.

"With respect to no-fly zone, I would like to make one observation: this is not a decision that could be taken between the U.S. and Turkey," Erdogan told a Washington think-tank during a trip to the United States.

"It is something that would have to come through the U.N. Security Council."

Proposals for a no-fly zone to protect rebel-held areas were floated for several months in 2012, but were resisted by the United States which argued that it would be complicated to set up and difficult to enforce.

The international community did back a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone in Libya which won the backing of the Security Council in March 2011 shortly before the ousting of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

NATO eventually took over the monitoring of the zone which was initially handled by Britain, France and the United States.

Erdogan meanwhile also gave his backing to a planned international peace conference proposed by Washington and Moscow, after having voiced reservations that all such talks would do would be to buy President Bashar Assad time.

"A second Geneva process with Russia and China included finds our support," Erdogan told the Brookings Institution.