BRITAIN yesterday ordered home its envoy to Pakistan as the country's nuclear stand-off with India moved a step closer to military confrontation.

Pakistan's foreign minister confirmed that it had targeted missiles at India to repel what it feared was an imminent pre-emptive strike against its nuclear test sites on Thursday.

As jubilant crowds thronged the streets of Islamabad to celebrate the first ''Islamic bomb'', pressure intensified for an international summit to end the arms race in Asia.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook recalled the High Commissioner to Pakistan, and predicted further sanctions in the form of delayed loans, reconsideration of special trade rules and scaled-down military co-operation.

''Today we have been consulting very actively with our European partners and others, in Luxembourg where Robin Cook was today with other Nato foreign ministers and in the capitals, about how best the international community can maximise pressure on India and Pakistan,'' a Foreign Office spokesman said.

With the prospect of other near-nuclear nations poised to capitalise on Pakistan and India's example, there were calls for urgent action to prevent a dangerous return to the days of mutually-assured destruction.

The crisis was sparked a fortnight ago when India surprised the world by test-firing five nuclear bombs. Pakistan, India's historic enemy, responded on Thursday with five tests of its own.

Mr Cook announced in a statement yesterday that, after consultations with EU partners, he was recalling Britain's High Commissioner in Islamabad, Sir David Dain, ''immediately''. A fortnight ago the High Commissioner in Delhi was ordered back after India exploded five bombs.

Mr Cook said that Britain was involved in detailed consultations with its European Union partners on the next step. The priority was to persuade the two nations to sign up to nuclear non-proliferation and start negotiations.

''The nuclear tests have only increased tension, not enhanced security. It is now time patiently to rebuild confidence. The international community is determined to get this message across. We shall continue to take firm action to demonstrate our resolve,'' Mr Cook said.

Earlier, he warned on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: ''We are now faced with a very real danger of an arms race between these two countries.'' It was a tragedy that two countries with so many poor people were spending money on the most costly weapons, not on tackling poverty.

India, meanwhile, said it stood prepared to arm its long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. Defence minister George Fernandes said: ''I suppose we will do whatever is necessary to safeguard our national security and defeat any evil intentions that anyone may have on us.''

The belligerent tone was matched by Pakistan, where foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan said his government had no regrets about carrying out its tests. ''The only regret we have is about the world leaders that are now trying to impose sanctions. We had been warning and cautioning them about the hegemonic . . . attitude of India,'' said Mr Khan.

He confirmed that Pakistan had targeted India with conventional missiles during its nuclear test firings, claiming India had been poised to launch a pre-emptive strike against its atomic research installations to stop the blasts from going ahead.

''The strikes from Pakistan would have gone,'' Mr Khan told BBC News. ''We knew something like this would happen and we had selected the targets on which we would strike.''

Ultimately, diplomacy avoided a military exchange, but Mr Khan's admission of how close the two countries came to a missile exchange demonstrates the scale of the tension between the neighbouring states.

In New Delhi, India's Prime Minister assured Pakistan that it had nothing to fear from India, and offered talks with Islamabad on an agreement to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

''I want to remove doubts that we want to destroy Pakistan,'' Atal Bihari Vajpayee told the parliament. But he warned Pakistan not to try to seize Kashmir.