A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria’s aid crisis achieved nothing new on Thursday except to highlight global paralysis on the 17-month conflict as western powers warned that military action to secure civilian safe zones was still an option.

While the Security Council impasse between western nations and Russia and China means a resolution to approve such a move appears impossible, countries could act outside the authority of the world body and intervene, as happened in Kosovo in 1999.

“How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and deliberate mass targeting?” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu asked the Security Council.

“I was expecting this meeting to produce tangible solutions to the suffering of the Syrian people,” he said. “We don’t have anything new to say to thousands of Syrians who suffer at the hands of the regime as the U.N. is entrapped by inaction.”

The meeting produced neither a resolution nor a statement approved by the 15 Security Council members.

Ankara has repeatedly urged the United Nations to protect displaced Syrians inside their country as the number of refugees swells in neighboring states.

France and Britain said ahead of the meeting that civilian safe havens were being considered.

“We’re ruling nothing out and we have contingency planning for a wide range of scenarios,” said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. “We also have to be clear that anything like a safe zone requires military intervention.”

Creating a buffer zone for displaced Syrians would be difficult because a U.N. Security Council resolution would be needed to set up a no-fly zone to protect the area, and Russia and China would not approve such a move, diplomats said.