India, Feb. 14 -- US President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to India, which would join the elite club of countries with the state-of-the-art stealth planes.

"Starting this year, we will be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We are also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters," Donald Trump told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.

Any such move would be a long way off and could face serious obstacles given that India already has deep defence ties with Russia, and the US has been loathe to sell the F-35 to countries where its technology might be stolen by adversaries, news agency B...