Turkey on Tuesday accused a Cypriot oil search mission in the Mediterranean Sea of violating its territorial rights, and vowed to make its own protests to international bodies over the dispute.
"We consider it an adventurist move to carry out activities on Turkey's continental shelf at a time when negotiations for a comprehensive settlement are under way in Cyprus," foreign ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin told AFP.
Ankara has moved to lodge protests against Cyprus at international bodies, he added, without giving details.
Cyprus charged Monday that a Turkish warship had impeded a Norwegian-flagged exploration vessel off the island's coast on Nov. 13.
The dispute flared amid U.N.-brokered talks between Cyprus's Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat aimed at ending the island's 34-year division.
Cypriot Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou condemned Turkey's action as "illegal according to international law" and said protests were lodged with the U.N. and the European Commission over the incident said to have occurred in Cyprus's economic exclusion zone.
Earlier this month, Turkey sent a Norwegian vessel on its own oil exploration mission in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ozugergin said the latest dispute with Cyprus and Turkey's search mission in the region on Nov. 14-18 weren't related.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey occupied the Turkish Cypriot-populated north in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking to unite the island with Greece.
The internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government has signed gas and oil exploration deals with Egypt and Lebanon, prompting protests from Turkey on grounds that the deals infringe on the rights of the island's breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet.