Malaysian official: Tripartite meeting to be held on MH370 search

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Saturday that he would be in Australia from Aug. 19 to meet with Australian deputy prime minister and the relevant agencies and teams involved in the search for MH370, while a tripartite meeting between China, Australia and Malaysia at the ministerial level would also be held.[Special coverage]

"After five months of searching for the missing plane, we would like to assure the next-of-kin of MH370 that our commitment to the search for this flight has remained consistent and has strengthened," he said in a statement.

Liow said Malaysia, together with its international partners Australia and China, announced that the contract to conduct a search of the southern Indian Ocean sea floor had been awarded to Fugro Survey Pty Ltd (Fugro) on Aug. 6.

He said various equipment and resources from all the related parties had been or would be deployed to carry out the search.