Britain halts sale of 60 Hawk jets to India

Britain has blocked the £1bn sale of 60 Hawk jets to India in an attempt to prevent tensions with Pakistan escalating further.

Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, confirmed a report in The Independent on Sunday that the Indian Government's deal with BAE Systems, the defence group, has been put on hold.

"In present circumstances, it would plainly be wholly consistent with the criteria we have set out that we would not provide weapons for places where there is the risk that those weapons would help to fuel tension," he told BBC's On the Record programme:

Mr Cook, who was overruled by Tony Blair when he sought to block the sale of Hawk jets to Indonesia while he was Foreign Secretary, said India and Pakistan should spend less on defence and build up more trade links with each other.

"They would gain so much more if they were able to co-operate and trade like any normal two countries side by side and assist each other in making sure they do take forward opportunities for development for their people instead of investing so much in defence," he said. "Indeed, Pakistan still spends far more on defence and its military than it does on education, which is crazy for such a poor country."

The crisis over Kashmir is "very grave and very worrying," he said. "What both sides now need to do is to step back from any military solution to the problem... and look for a diplomatic solution and a just solution for Kashmir."

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, is expected to discuss the arms embargo when he visits India and Pakistan this week for talks with Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister, and General Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan. On a previous visit to Delhi in February, he urged the Indian government to go ahead with the plan to buy the Hawk jets from BAE Systems. The deal was stalled as India pressed for a price cut.