Turkey’s top general has warned that military ties with the US will be irreversibly damaged if the US Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide, a report said today.

TURKEY’S top general yesterday said the military was ready to stage a cross-border offensive to fight Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq and that he already had sought government approval to mount military action.

A bomb exploded in one of the Turkish capital’s busiest commercial centres, killing six people and injuring about 80, authorities said.