Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Friday called

Ankara- Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a road map to normalize relations the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced late Wednesday night.

The negotiations "have been working intensively with a view to normalizing their bilateral relations and developing them in a spirit of good-neighbourliness, and mutual respect, and thus to promoting peace, security and stability in the whole region," the ministry said.

The statement said the negotiations have "achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding."

Istanbul  - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday criticized an online petition in which thousands of Turks apologized for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks during the First World War.

"I haven't committed any crime. Why should I apologize?" Erdogan asked. rejecting the initiative, and adding that an apology in this matter would not be logical, as it would have to come from the perpetrators of the crime.

Brussels - The European Union has signed an aviation agreement with Armenia allowing any European airline to fly to and from the Asian republic, officials in Brussels said Tuesday.

The deal, which caps three years of negotiations, replaces a set of bilateral arrangements agreed by Armenia with some of the EU's 27 member states.

Yerevan - Armenians spent Sunday commemorating a devastating earthquake that left about 25,000 people dead on December 7, 1988.

The earthquake, which also left about 500,000 homeless, marked the first time that the Soviet Union - to which Armenia belonged in 1988 - allowed foreign aid workers to enter its territory.

As part of the day's ceremonies, President Serzh Sargsyan was expected to approve a memorial to the earthquake's victims in the town of Gyumri.

Ankara  - Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on Monday said he saw no obstacles to normalizing relations with historic foe Turkey.

Speaking in Istanbul, Nalbandian said Armenia had no preconditions to establishing diplomatic ties and that he hoped that Turkey also had no preconditions.

"We have started an active dialogue," Nalbandian told reporters in Istanbul where he was attending a Black Sea Economic Cooperation meeting. "I don't think there are any real obstacles to a normalization of ties."