YEREVAN (AP) - Armenia on Saturday rejected a proposal from Turkey to establish political relations while jointly researching the killings of Armenians during World War I, which Armenians say was a genocide. The proposal by Turkey's prime minister, made in the Turkish daily Milliyet on Friday, «does not contain anything new,» said Armenian presidential spokesman Viktor Sogomonyan. «We have proposed to establish diplomatic relations without preconditions, and examine outstanding issues between our two countries within the framework of an intergovernmental commission,» Sogomonyan said.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has approved a government decree allowing the United States to use a key military base in the south of the country as a logistical cargo hub for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Anatolia news agency reported on Saturday. Sezer's approval late Friday brought to an end months of negotiations between the two countries amid bilateral tensions stemming from differences over Iraq and constituted another step toward improving strained ties. The details of the deal were not disclosed, but US officials here earlier said they had requested permission to fly in «non-lethal» logistical material to Incirlik air base in southern Adana on civilian cargo planes and redistribute the goods to Iraq and Afghanistan on military aircraft.

A radical Kurdish group said yesterday that it was responsible for a weekend bomb explosion in a Turkish seaside resort that killed a policeman, and warned tourists to stay away from the country, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, said by Turkish police to be an offshoot of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), made the claim, according to the Internet site of the German-based Mesopotamia agency which has links to the PKK. One police officer was killed and four others were injured on Saturday when a parcel bomb exploded in the hands of a bomb disposal expert in Kusadasi, western Turkey. (AFP)