YEREVAN, Sept 6: Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul paid an historic visit to Armenia on Saturday, seeking to end almost a century of mutual hostility.

In the first trip by a Turkish head of state to the ex-Soviet nation, Gul held talks with Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian, after which the two pledged to overcome decades of enmity.

Both leaders said there was now the political will to mend ties betwen the two neighbours before heading off together to Yerevan’s Hrazdan stadium to watch a World Cup football qualifier between their nations.

Sarkisian said he had been asked by Gul to attend the return fixture in Turkey on October 14 but did not say whether or not he had accepted.

The two countries -- which have no diplomatic relations -- have waged an international diplomatic battle over Yerevan’s efforts to have the 1915-1917 massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians recognised as genocide.

Several hundred angry nationalist protestors lined the route of Gul’s motorcade as it made its way into the capital from Yerevan airport to see Sarkisian.

Holding aloft their nation’s flag as well as the emblem of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation, they complained bitterly that Gul was visiting when Turkey refuses to admit genocide.

“We are here because we want to tell the entire world that we do not forget the genocide of 1915. We will not welcome Gul or any other Turk until they have recognised the genocide,” one protester, Bardasar Akhpar, told AFP.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people were killed between 1915 and 1917 in orchestrated massacres during World War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000-500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with invading Russian troops.

Officials said extra security measures had been employed on Gul’s airport route and at the match, while local media reported that both Turkish and Armenian snipers would be training their sights across the Hrazdan stadium.

Apart from the protestors on the airport road, the streets of Yerevan appeared calm ahead of the game. Planeloads of Turkish fans and peace activists have been arriving in the city since Friday.

“I’m not interested in football at all. In fact, I hate it because of the nationalism that comes with it,” said Ahmet Turkana, a Turkish activist from a pro-democracy group called Young Civilians.—AFP