Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming more and more embroiled in a direct fight with Syria over Idlib Province. The fighting is directly across the border from Hatay, a province which was given to Turkey in 1939 after a disputed referendum.
Turkey has lost a total of 54 soldiers in Idlib province this month as Syria's President Bashar Assad and his Russian allies have accused Turkey of failing to honour a deal to separate extremist groups from other fighters in the region.
The Syrian Army now controls the southern half of Idlib province but the fighting has increased the stream of refugees attempting to cross the border into the Turkish province of Hatay.
The border between Syria and Turkey is a relatively straight line from east to west until it reaches the Orontes river.
Then it suddenly dips and heads southwards for about 80 miles, before turning west again and meeting the Mediterranean just beyond Mount Kilic.
Strategically this little corner of the Levant – known as Liwa Iskanderoun to the Syrians – is vitally important to the Turkish state.
Now called Hatay province, it contains the cities of Antakya and Iskanderun – previously known as Antioch and Alexandretta – and the port of Dortyol, which was known as Chork Marzban to its Armenian population before the genocide which finally ended in 1923.
In that same year the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, signed the…
