Greece and the United States on Tuesday held a joint military drill in the Aegean amid rising tensions with Turkey.

In the statement released by the Greek general staff, it was stated that the two countries held a joint training exercise in the Aegean, and Greek head of General Staff Konstandinos Floros and U.S. Ambassador to Athens Geoffrey Pyatt visited the USS Mount Whitney warship of the U.S. 6th Fleet, which participated in the exercise.

In the statement, it was noted that communication and maneuvering exercises were carried out in the PASSEX type exercise, in which ships of the Greek naval forces and warplanes of the Greek air force also participated.

The drill comes a week after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that “Greece, as a whole, has turned into a U.S. military base.”

The Turkish leader was referring to United States' numerous military installations in Greece's Alexandroupoli (Dedeağaç).

The two neighbors, allies in NATO, are at odds over a number of issues such as competing claims over jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, air space, energy, the ethnically split island of Cyprus and the status of islands in the Aegean.