The Sri Lankan Open Relief Centers are the closest current equivalent of the traditional safety zone concept. The safety zone in northern Iraq was created in direct response to a failure of refugee protection. While 1.4 million Kurdish refugees found asylum in Iran after the Gulf war, Turkey has limited its obligations under refugee instruments to accepting refugees from Europe. The international community did not pressure Turkey to allow its 300,000 Iraqi Kurdish refugees to stay, or to admit the tens of thousands more who were stranded on a freezing, muddy mountain range on the border. The decision to establish this zone was taken without the agreement of the Iraqi government.
Safety zones imposed externally can promote political aims under a humanitarian cloak.
However legitimate those political aims may be, they contribute to the perception of the safety zone as a punitive or partisan instrument. The safe haven in northern Iraq was not demilitarized and it has been vulnerable to attack from Turkey, which has cited the activities of Turkish Kurd guerrillas based in northern Iraq. Attacks by Iraqi government forces outside the safe haven are alleged to have forced more Kurds to flee into it in recent years. In addition, internal struggles among Kurdish groups have had a destabilizing effect, and call into question the purpose of the safe haven. In any case, continued protection remains contingent on the willingness of Western powers to maintain a credible and sufficient level of threat.