MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian SU-35 multifunctional fighter still has chances to win a South Korean tender, Deputy Director General of the Sukhoi aircraft corporation Alexander Klementyev said on Wednesday.
The SU-35 has been put up for the tender by Sukhoi and the Rosoboronexport state-owned arms trader, Klementyev told Interfax- Military News Agency upon his return from South Korea.
Commenting on results of the third leg of bidding negotiations that ended in Seoul last week, Klementyev said that "Russia's conditions are much more attractive than those reported by Western and South Korean mass media."
Some reports claim that South Korea will have to pay USD4bn for the planes. "This is pure misinformation," Klementyev said. He did not specify Rosoboronexport's price of a batch of fighters, but said that it was below USD3bn.
According to unofficial sources, South Korea is planning to purchase 40 modern fighters worth a total of USD3.1bn-3.2bn. Apart from Russian SU-35, competing for the contract are U.S. company Boeing's F-15E, French Dassault's Rafale and the European consortium Eurofighter's Typhoon.
The Russian party has held a series of meetings and negotiations with the South Korean Air Force and Defense Ministry's procurement bureau in the course of the competition that has been in progress for a long time. South Korean pilots and technicians visited Russia to study the plane. Draft basic and offset contracts were initialed and forwarded to South Korea in September 2001. Next month, The Sukhoi company exhibited the SU-35 at the Seoul air show, where the plane was praised by specialists.
The winner of the contract was expected to be announced in January, Klementyev said. However no decision was made after the first and the second leg of the talks held on January 14 and 24 respectively. Organizers of the competition announced that no bidders had come up with an acceptable price. It is not yet clear what the acceptable price is. Results of the third leg are not yet clear either.
Rosoboronexport and Sukhoi are ready to continue constructive negotiations if South Korea expresses good will, Klementyev said. However it is necessary to keep the competition fair and transparent, as it has been declared by the South Korean party, he added.