UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has insisted that UK arms sales to India and Pakistan during the Kashmir crisis have broken no rules.

His comments during a BBC Radio interview from Delhi came as MPs criticised him for failing to block the sales at the height of the two countries' stand-off over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Mr Straw is visiting India and Pakistan for talks

A House of Commons report said that rules preventing the export of arms should have been applied with "great vigour".

Mr Straw is currently in India as part of moves to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan.

Both countries still have large numbers of troops massed along the border.

But Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I am quite clear that the licences that were issued earlier this year have made no difference whatever to the level of tension across the line of control."

Licence applications

Mr Straw told parliament in June that, although no licence applications from India and Pakistan had been blocked, he had not personally approved any in the previous two months.

The two countries have many troops amassed on their border

But he later said that 148 licences had been issued for India and another 18 for Pakistan. He told BBC Radio on Friday that the licences were approved in February, before tensions had reached a peak.

The report compiled by four House of Commons committees said the stand-off should have triggered clauses which forbade arms exports when there was a clear risk they could be used "aggressively against another country".

It said that if the stand-off was not serious enough to invoke the clause, then it was difficult to imagine what could, "short of all out war".

"The stand-off over Kashmir should in our view have led to its application with very great vigour," the politicians said.

In addition, the report also criticised Mr Straw for allowing British-built components for US F16 fighters to be exported, even though the aircraft were being sold to Israel.

The export of any equipment which could be used by Israel against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories had previously been banned.

A statement from the Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien said the government would respond to the committee in full in due course.

Diplomatic aim

Mr Straw's visit to India, and later to Pakistan, is designed to press both sides to make positive moves towards ending their hostile relationship.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to make a similar trip to the region in a week's time.

Since the two neighbours went to the brink of war in May, there have been some signs of a lessening in tensions.

Pakistan has promised permanently to end support of cross-border militancy, and initially infiltrations did fall.

But our correspondent says India is now giving mixed signals about whether it accepts that infiltration is indeed still down and that the situation has stagnated.