The Foreign Office has delivered a rebuke to the Archbishop of Canterbury after he said the Government's "short-sighted" and "ignorant" policy in Iraq was putting Christian communities in the Middle East at risk.
Writing in The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said factors such as reaction to the war in Iraq, mistrust from surrounding communities and security measures have combined to put intolerable pressure on Christians in countries across the region.
He said many were now fleeing their homes in Iraq, Iran, the Holy Land, Egypt and Turkey.
But a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We disagree with his views. We don't think that it is our policies in Iraq that cause suffering of Christians."
Referring to Iraq he said: "We think it is intolerant extremism of people who want to cause pain and suffering and chaos in order to promulgate the societies in which they can impose the way of life they want on people who have clearly voted for democracy and democratic government. It is not our policies, it is those who decide to pursue violence and inflict suffering."
Their targets were "pretty indiscriminate" and included moderate Muslims as well as Christians, the spokesman said.
"The only way out of this is for us to work closely with the democratically elected government in Iraq in order to create a society in which the rights of Christians and all are protected. That is exactly the opposite of the society those who inflict the suffering want."
Dr Williams, writing during a visit to the Holy Land by UK church leaders, accused the British and US governments of endangering the lives and futures of the many thousands of Christians living in the Middle East.
In the days leading up to the Iraq War, he said, a warning was made and "systematically ignored" that Christians living in the region would be seen as supporters of the "crusading West". The results of this were now "painfully adding to what was already a difficult situation for Christian communities across the region".
Iraq's own Christian population was "dropping by thousands every couple of months" and there were also problems in Turkey and Egypt, Dr Williams wrote.
