Turkey has said that it had received information that an Exxon Mobil ship was heading towards the eastern Mediterranean with the intention of conducting oil and gas exploration. Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, said on Wednesday at a news conference that Turkey would continue to preserve its rights concerning hydrocarbon exploration in the region. Last month Turkish military manoeuvres prevented a vessel charted by Italy’s state-controlled Eni reaching an area that Cyprus has licensed for drilling, with Turkey denying that Cyprus had jurisdiction over the area concerned.