The Israeli parliament today discussed the recognition of the killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

Members of the Education and Culture Committee failed to make a decision, amidst warnings by the foreign ministry about damaging the already tense relationship with Turkey.

"I can say that at this time, recognition of this type can have very grave strategic implications," said Irit Lillian, a Foreign Ministry official who addressed the forum.

"Our relations with Turkey today are so fragile and so delicate that there is no place to take them over the red line, where we have been, I'm sorry to say, for many months," she said.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since the bording of a Turkish aid flotilla bound for Gaza by Israeli commandoes, which resulted in the deaths of 9 Turkish nationals.

Zahava Gal-On, an MP from the left-wing Meretz party, said Israeli governments have refused to classify the 1915 killings as genocide "for cynical, strategic and economic, reasons, connected to ties with Turkey."

Israel, has a "moral and historical obligation ... to recognise the genocide of the Armenian people" she added.

The Swiss parliament also discussed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide today, it was however rejected on the grounds that  “massacres should better be brought to light by historians.”

Turkey recently suspended all ties with France as the French parliament passed a bill seeking the criminalisation of the denial of any genocide recognised as such by the French government.

France recognised the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces as a Genocide in 2001.