NICOSIA (AFP) -- Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos is to discuss a continuing row with Turkey over oil exploration deals when he visits Athens later this month, it was announced Friday.

Cypriot government spokesman Christodoulos Pashardes said there would be no set agenda when Papadopoulos holds talks with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis on Febuary 21, but the oil dispute will not be overlooked.

"It would be very natural during their talks to have some discussion on the well-acknowledged oil issue," Pashardes told reporters.

Ankara has denied stepping up its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean amid a growing row with Cyprus over its right to grant offshore oil and gas exploration contracts to Egypt and Lebanon.

Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat has written to UN chief Ban Ki-Moon staking a claim to the oil and gas reserves off the divided island saying any exploration deals should come with reunification and not before.

Talat, whose Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is recognized only by Ankara, has previously said his community would not give upon what he called its exploration rights.

The Cyprus government has made representations to the UN over Turkey's "threats and intimidation".

Greece, along with the EU, backs Cyprus's right to grant offshore oil and gas exploration rights, although Brussels and Washington have urged restraint so as not to heightened tensions in the region. Turkey declared the deals with Lebanon and Egypt invalid, saying it is "determined to protect its rights and interests in the eastern Mediterranean."

A defiant Cyprus government will press ahead with a tenders launch on Thursday for oil exploration and drilling rights within Cyprus' exclusive economic zone beneath the seabed.

Estimated oil deposits are put at around eight to ten billion barrels.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded and seized its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia to join the island with Greece.