"We are not talking to anyone except Dassault Aviation"

During this week, two (ex)competitors of France in the MMRCA indicated that they still had their chances, and even that Rafale could finally loose this deal too.

For example, the the Hindu reported that Vyacheskav Dzirkaln, Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation, has shown quite optimistic about this matter :

“I wouldn’t say that the MMRCA tender is a closed issue. We have information that the tender is still up in the air,”

[...]

The sides have so far failed to reach agreement on these issues,

And nearly at the same time, The Times of India quoted two German officials...

"There have been discussions between German and Indian officials and I can say that this is not a closed book yet,'' said Schockenoff, a close aide of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in India on a four-day visit.
"As far as I know, there is not yet a commercial order committed by the Indian government. The Eurofighter manufacturers are working again on the offer and this is a subject of negotiations between the European consortium and the Indian government,'' he added.

Interestingly, Indian officials estimated it was time to remember everybody that, according to MoD source, actually :

"We are not talking to anyone except Dassault Aviation whose Rafale aircraft has been selected as the lowest bidder in the multi-billion dollar contract".

Another article, published in L'Usine Nouvelle, indicated that discussions are really going on, and well, though this may last for long. The article states that due to the high technological complexity of some of the Rafale's components, the aircraft should remain mainly built in France, for more than 50 percent of the production.


8/26/2012 UPDATE :

A new article counterdicting Russians and Germans :
http://idrw.org/?p=13603

Another reputed source told idrw.org that “There has been no backdoor level talks going on with any losing competitor ” and went on to remind us that Russian offer of Mig-35 had failed in Technical evaluation level and failed miserably  to be even considered as an option if talks with Dassault fails for any reason. next choice will be European EADS  ( Eurofighter ) but we are not talking to them on this matter yet .