According to parliamentary sources, the government will put the two issues before lawmakers soon after they resume legislative work on October 6 -- five days after parliament re-opens.

But it will have a tough time winning over opposition parties that have already raised objections to both projects.

For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the two issues are of utmost importance to Turkey's standing on the international arena, but they could also cost him politically at home.

Turkey and Armenia won international applause when they announced last month two protocols calling for the establishment of diplomatic ties and re-opening their border.

Turkish officials said at the weekend that the two countries' foreign ministers will sign the documents on October 10 in Switzerland.

The protocols, however, need parliamentary ratification before they can take effect.

Erdogan's government has been accused at home of making concessions that damage Turkey's interests and of selling out Azerbaijan, a top ally of Ankara that is locked in conflict with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorny Karabakh.

Turkey has long refused to establish diplomatic links with Armenia over Yerevan's efforts to have World War I-era massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks recognised as genocide -- a label Turkey strongly rejects.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917, and the massacres have been recognised as a genocide by France, Canada and the European parliament.

Turkey also closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan over Yerevan's support to ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorny Karabakh.

As part of the rapprochement process between Ankara and Yerevan, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has invited his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian to watch the second leg of a World Cup qualification match between their countries. It remains unclear whether Sarkisian will come.

Gul had visited Armenia in September 2008 for the first-leg match, becoming the first Turkish head of state to do so.

Reconciliation between Ankara and Yerevan would bolster Turkey's bid to join the European Union as would a government plan to introduce measures to boost the rights of the Kurdish minority and erode support for a bloody campaign by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels for self-rule.

The government remains tight-lipped on the contents of the package, but media reports say it may include steps to lift restrictions on teaching Kurdish in schools, renaming Kurdish villages that have Turkish names and allowing campaigning in Kurdish.

Ankara could also open the way for the return of some 12,000 Turkish Kurds exiled in the UN-run camp of Makhmour in northern Iraq, newspapers said.

Kurdish activists, on the other hand, have urged the government to give official recognition to the Kurdish identity and culture in the constitution, a proposal that Erdogan has rejected.

The current constitution, a legacy of the 1980 coup, states that Turkey is an indivisible whole and sets Turkish as its language.

"This constitution is an obstacle to all democratic rights. If you do not change it, you cannot achieve anything," Ahmet Turk, the head of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, said.

The army, which has been fighting the PKK, has signalled that it is behind the government's initiative, but also warned against moves that would harm the country's unitary structure, including constitutional recognition of an identity other than Turkish.