Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to pour oil on the flames of rising tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, despite a barrage of negative reactions by the international community over Turkey’s illegal actions in EEZ of Cyprus.

Addressing military cadets of the country’s National Defence University in Ankara on Wednesday, Turkey’s president claimed that there are “increasing efforts to violate our rights in the Aegean.”

“You will stop growing attempts to violate our rights in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean,” said the Turkish president.

“You will face every threat like steel and defend every inch of our borders, as well as beyond our borders as you are the representatives of our people, the steel fist, the tough heart, the look that punctures darkness and embraces the future,” added Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan’s provocative statements ended in a crescendo by dubbing the Cypriots “gangs” in his efforts to defend Turkey’s invasion on the island in 1974. “You are the ones who saved our brothers in Cyprus who were tortured by the violence of the killers’ gangs.”