Germany said Thursday that Turkey had approved a visit by German lawmakers to a Turkish NATO airbase after initially refusing access amid a row over the Armenian "genocide".

"I welcome the fact the Turkish government has now approved the plans for a visit by the defence committee of the German parliament" to the Icirlik base, said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"With this decision by the Turkish government, we have taken a step forward," he said after months of discord since the German parliament angered Turkey in June by labelling the Ottomans' World War I-era massacre of Armenians a "genocide".