"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 stated in a tweet.

Turkey has said that it has carried out drills with the US Navy destroyer in the eastern Mediterranean hours after its rival Greece started war games with France and neighboring EU allies.

The Ministry also released images of three warships, two of them Turkish and one of them with Turkish and US flags.

The Turkish announcement came in the middle of an escalating row around maritime boundaries and the rights to vast natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

On Wednesday, Greece started three days of exercises with the French , Italian and Greek Cypriot authorities in the region south of Crete.

Maritime Business World