No-Fly Zone

   Following the abortive Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein in March 1991 and the horrific Kurdish refugee exodus that ensued, the United States, Great Britain, and France

   imposed a no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq to allow the Kurds to return to their homes without fear of being attacked anymore. The no-fly zone was enforced by allied aircraft based in southeastern Turkey and supposedly sanctioned by UN Security Council Resolution 688 of 5 April 1991, which condemned "the repression of the Iraqi civilian population . . . in Kurdish populated areas" and demanded "that Iraq . . . immediately end this repression."

   Also called Operation Provide Comfort (after 1 January 1997, Operation Northern Watch and without further French participation), the no-fly zone provided the protection and security that allowed the formation of a de facto Kurdish state that covered some 17,000 square miles in much of northern Iraq. The United States and Great Britain also maintained a much less successful no-fly zone over the southern part of Iraq in an attempt to offer some protection to the Iraqi Shiites.

   After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein, the no-fly zone was no longer necessary and therefore was terminated. In retrospect, it can be considered one of the background actions that eventually resulted in today's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) becoming a constituent federal state of present-day Iraq.

   See also Gulf War II.