ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to expel thousands of illegal Armenians workers amid tensions over allegations that Armenians were victims of genocide under the Ottoman Empire.

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Resolutions voted recently in the United States and Sweden to brand the World War I killings as "genocide" undermined peace efforts with Armenia, Erdogan said, according to excerpts from an interview with the BBC Turkish service published on the BBC website.

"Those people make shows with those resolutions... And they harm the Armenian people as well... And things become deadlocked," he was quoted as saying during a visit to London.

Referring to about 100,000 Armenians working illegally in Turkey that Ankara has so far tolerated, he said: "So what will I do tomorrow? If necessary, I will tell them 'come on, back to your country'... I'm not obliged to keep them in my country.

"Those actions (on genocide resolutions) unfortunately have a negative impact on our sincere attitudes," he said.

Forced to leave their impoverished country to earn a living, thousands of Armenians, mostly women, have settled in Istanbul, working mainly in manual jobs or as nannies and cleaning ladies.

Erdogan blamed the "genocide" resolutions on the influential Armenian diaspora in the United States and Western Europe.

"We are extending our hand, but if our counterparts clench their hand into a fist, there will be nothing we can do," he said.

Following Swiss-brokered talks to end decades of enmity, Turkey and Armenia signed an accord in October to establish diplomatic ties and open their border.

The process however has hit snags, with both countries accusing each other of lacking true commitment to the deal.

The climate was further poisoned this month when the US House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a non-binding resolution branding the massacres of Armenians a genocide, and the Swedish parliament followed suit last week.

Turkey recalled its ambassadors from both countries, warning that bilateral ties and reconciliation efforts with Armenia would suffer.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in a systematic extermination campaign during World War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

Turkey counters that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks were killed in what was a civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian forces.

Parliaments in several other countries have also recognised the killings as genocide in the past.