Turkey conducts Mediterranean exercise with US amid tensions with Greece

The Turkish announcement came in the heat of an escalating row over maritime borders and rights to large natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkish frigate TCG Barbaros and  TCG Burgazada corvettes have conducted maritime training with  American destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill in the eastern Mediterranean on August 26, 2020.

Turkish frigate TCG Barbaros and TCG Burgazada corvettes have conducted maritime training with American destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill in the eastern Mediterranean on August 26, 2020.

Turkey has said it had conducted exercises with a US Navy destroyer in the eastern Mediterranean, hours after its rival Greece began war games with France and EU allies nearby.

"Turkish frigates TCG Barbaros and TCG Burgazada have conducted maritime training with American destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill in the eastern Mediterranean on August 26," the Defence Ministry announced in a tweet on Wednesday.

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The ministry also released photos of three warships, two of them Turkish and one flying the Turkish and US flags.

It did not specify the military drills' location or other details.

The Turkish announcement came in the heat of an escalating row over maritime borders and rights to large natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Greece began three days of exercises with France, Italy and Greek Cypriot Administration on Wednesday in an area south of Crete island.

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