Ankara - Turkish President Abdullah Gul will on Saturday become the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia in an important to normalizing relations between the two historic foes.

"An historic decision," read the main headline in Hurriyet newspaper. "The ice wall between Turkey and Armenia is being thawed through football diplomacy."

The opportunity to visit Armenia came after Armenian President Serge Sarkisian invited Gul to join him in Yerevan to watch a World Cup qualifying match.

Turkey and Armenia have had no diplomatic relations and the land border between the neighbours has been closed since Turkey cut ties when Armenia went to war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s over control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The visit is seen as an opportunity to create the circumstances needed for the removal of obstacles in front of a rapprochement between the two peoples that share a common history," Gul said in a statement released Wednesday night.

In addition to Armenia's continued control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the issue of Armenia's insistence that Turkey recognise as a genocide the mass murders of up to 1.5 million of ethnic Armenians during the First World War has kept the rivals apart.

Turkey accepts that more than 100,000 Armenians were killed during the war but claims that the deaths were the result of an Armenian uprising.

Opposition to the visit was expressed by non-government parties in Turkey and the ruling Justice and Development Party, of which Gul was a founding member, on Monday made a group decision not to send any parliamentarians to Yerevan for the match.

Gul can also expect Armenian protesters to meet him at the airport in Yerevan and the reaction of the crowd at the match is likely to be hostile.

During his five-to-six hour visit Gul is set to meet Sarkisian for an hour before watching the match and will then return immediately to Ankara.

Turkey has used what Turkish newspapers have described as "football diplomacy" in the past to soothe poor relations, notably in 2002 when it joined with historic rival Greece to bid to host the European Championships.

The football match is itself historic being the first time the teams have played each other. Turkish coach Fatih Terim said earlier in the week that they were concentrating on the game.

"For us this just a football match. We cannot carry the weight of history on our shoulders," Terim said. (dpa)