long story-border of Syria Turkey

Don't forget the history of disputed land here: "There are of course many reasons for Turkish qualms about the refugee situation," says Hugh Eakin in The New York Review of Books. For one thing, it pretty much spells the end of Turkey's recent attempts to improve ties with Assad. More importantly, the Turkish area in question used to belong to Syria, and still appears as part of the country in Syrian maps. Syria's support for separatist Kurds in the region pushed the countries "to the brink of war" in the 1990s. It's easy to imagine that we may be on the brink again.

There is a striking divergence between the way the Syrian war is seen in Beirut – just a few hours’ drive from Damascus, even now – and what actually appears to be happening on the ground inside Syria. On recent trips I would drive to Damascus, having listened to Syrians and non-Syrians in Beirut who sincerely believed that rebel victory was close, only to find the government still very much in control. Around the capital, the rebels held some suburbs and nearby towns, but in December I was able to travel the ninety miles between Damascus and Homs, Syria’s third largest city, without any guards and with ordinary heavy traffic on the road. Friends back in Beirut would shake their heads in disbelief when I spoke about this and politely suggest that I’d been hoodwinked by the regime. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n11/patrick-cockburn/is-it-the-end-of-sykes-picot