NICOSIA – Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said Turkey’s attempts to make claims on Greek territories won’t succeed because they violate international laws – which Turkey doesn’t recognize in some cases.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been stepping up provocations in the Aegean, including sending fighter jets to violate Greek airspace and warships past Greek islands, said he doesn’t accept the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that set borders between the countries and wants the return of some islands off Turkey’s coast ceded to Greece.

Kotzias said Turkey has submitted to the United Nations a document containing “erroneous positions” regarding Greek territory in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean and is trying to present such claims as lawful.

After speaking in Nicosia with Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides – with Turkish warships trying to keep foreign energy companies from drilling off the island’s coast – Kotzias said Erdogan won’t succeed in manipulating international laws.

Turkey also also claims that part of an area where Cyprus is conducting an offshore gas search falls within its own continental shelf but Christodoulides said Cyprus’ gas search fully abides by international law.