Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Greece to enter talks over disputed eastern Mediterranean territorial claims or face the consequences in the wake of an escalated dispute in the eastern Mediterranean.

"They're either going to understand the language of politics and diplomacy, or in the field with painful experiences," he said on Saturday at a hospital's opening ceremony in Istanbul.

The two NATO allies have been locked for weeks in a tense standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is prospecting the seabed for energy reserves in an area Greece claims as its own continental shelf.

Cyprus has also accused Turkey of breaching its sovereignty by drilling in their waters. All sides have deployed naval and air forces to assert their competing claims in the region.

"They are going to understand that Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up the immoral maps and documents imposed," Erdogan added, referring to areas marked by Greece and Cyprus as their own economic maritime zones (EEZ).

He said Turkey was "ready for every eventuality and result."

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) prescribed that any sovereign state has exclusive rights over the marine resources stretches 200 nautical miles from the baseline of its coast, which is called the EEZ.

But four countries voted against the LOSC, including Turkey, the United States, Venezuela, and Israel.

NATO said this week Greek and Turkish leaders had agreed to take part in technical talks to avoid accidents between their navies.

But Greece later said it had not agreed to the talks, leading to accusations from Turkey that the European Union country was shunning dialogue.

Meanwhile, a Turkish news report said Ankara has redeployed armored personnel carriers from the Syrian border to the one it shares with Greece.

The Cumhuriyet newspaper said 40 tanks were being transported from the Syrian border to Edirne in northwest Turkey and carried photographs of armored vehicles loaded on trucks.

A military official speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations said the deployment was a regular movement of forces and unconnected to tension with Greece.

The recent crisis is the most serious in Turkish-Greek relations in decades. The neighbors have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over maritime resources in the Aegean.

France, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have all sent forces to join war games with either Greece or Cyprus in recent weeks, in order to counter the aggressiveness from Ankara. 

The European Union, which counts Greece and Cyprus as members, has also threatened possible sanctions against Ankara over its "illegal" actions.

This week, the U.S. announced it was easing a 33-year-old arms embargo against ethnically divided Cyprus.

(With input from agencies)