REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government's plan to buy Sukhoi-35 fighter jets, Generation 4.5, is still in place, Air Force Chief of Staff Marshal Yuyu Sutisna said.  Sutisna was responding to an allegation that the United States has pressed Indonesia not to buy Russian-made fighter jets when US Secretary of Defense James Norman Mattis visited Indonesia recently.

"I have not heard of it (the allegation). I learned it from the media. To be sure, the contract will be signed," Sutisna noted after a meeting of the Indonesian Air Force leadership 2018 at the Air Force Headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Friday.

Sutisna stressed that nothing has affected the plan to buy Sukhoi-35. According to him, it is still relevant to what National Defense Forces Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto had stated, 

The Sukhoi SU-35 fighter jets will be equipped with air-to-air missile, air-to-ground missile, bomb, ground support equipment, simulator, spare parts including reserve engine according to specifications set by the air force chief of staff.

The former chief of the Indonesian Air Force Operation Command I expressed the hope that the contract for the purchase of Sukhoi-35s will be signed in February 2018.

"I hope the contract will be signed in February 2018 at the latest. If the contract is signed, the first plane will be delivered next year," he pointed out.

Indonesia planned to buy Sukhoi Su-35 (NATO: Flanker E) to replace F-5E/F Tiger II at the TNI AU's air squadron 14. 

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