HANOI, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese Minister of Public Security To Lam said that the ministry's delegation is ready to travel to Britain to assist investigation while talking over phone with British Home Secretary Priti Patel over the Essex lorry deaths on Wednesday.
Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security has been working closely with British authorities, including the British police, to investigate and verify the identities of victims suspected of being Vietnamese citizens, Lam said in a statement about the phone talks published Wednesday on the ministry's website.
As the verification task is very urgent, the Vietnamese ministry is ready to send a delegation to Britain to assist investigation, Lam said, suggesting the British side support them when working in the country.
During their talks, the two officials discussed a number of related issues, and agreed on many important contents of cooperation to clarify the case, according to the statement.
On Tuesday, Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung made a phone call to Heather Wheeler, Minister for Asia and the Pacific at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to discuss the Essex truck incident.
The British officials expressed their government's commitment to working with Vietnam as the investigation and process of identifying victims continue, British Ambassador to Vietnam Gareth Ward said in a statement about the two phone calls on Wednesday.
Earlier, British authorities had sent Vietnam records of four victims among the 39 dead for connecting the information and verifying the victims' identification. Vietnam had also compiled information provided by 14 local families seeking for missing relatives in Britain and sent them to British authorities for verification, said the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.