Governments 'misled MPs for Turkey'

Geoffrey Robinson QC said that evidence recently released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that unwillingness to antagonise Turkey's "neuralgic" - or mentally unstable - attitude towards genocide was behind Britain's failure to acknowledge the atrocity.

The documents state: "Her Majesty's government is open to criticism in terms of the ethical dimension. But given the importance of our relations with Turkey, the current line is the only feasible option."

The government had insisted that historians were divided on the issue, but Mr Robinson found that no genocide experts - including historians - had ever been consulted by a British government.

Within four weeks of the documents' release, the policy had changed and references to historians being divided on the issue had been discarded.