MAGADAN, August 19. /TASS/. India is not withdrawing from the joint project with Russia for the development of a fifth generation fighter jet, Yuri Slyusar, president of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), said on Sunday.

"We continue to discuss with India joint development of a fifth generation fighter jet. The topic is not closed. It has been said that India is withdrawing from this project. No, they are not," he said in an interview with the Deistvuyushchiye Litsa (Political Actors) program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

"I hope very much our talks will be ultimately crowned by the designing stage and we will develop our joint fifth generation aircraft," he added.

India’s Economic Times newspaper said earlier that India planned to withdraw from the joint project with Russia for the development of a fifth generation fighter jet as India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) claimed there was every possibility to develop corresponding technologies independently.

An agreement on such a project was reached in 2007. The fifth generation fighter jet is being developed on the basis of the Russian Su-57 fighter jet with account of the Indian side’s technical requirements. It is planned that the launch customer will be India’s Air Forces. Later on, such jets will be sold to third countries.