Tehran, Jan 25, IRNA – Iran, China, Panama, and Hong Kong have signed an agreement to jointly investigate sinking of the Iranian oil tanker, Sanchi, in China's eastern waters.

Navigation authorities of the four countries agreed to carry out a joint research on the collision of the Iranian tanker and the Chinese freighter which took place on January 6, said China's Ministry of Transport in a statement on Thursday. 

Carrying over 136,000 tons of gas condensates, the Iranian oil tanker collided with a Chinese freight ship in East China coast on January 6 and exploded. Bodies of only three out of 32 members of the crew were found before the tanker sank on January 14.

Navigation authorities of the four countries are to find out the reason behinde the incident by decrypting the two ships black boxes.

Earlier on Thursday, it was reported that the DNA tests taken from the bodies of the Iranian sailors killed in the Sanchi oil tanker inferno have been sent to Tehran two days ago to be identified.

'The results of the DNA tests are to be compared with those from the families of the victims in Tehran,' Alireza Irvash told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

'If the tests show that the bodies belong to the three Iranian sailors, the documents of their identities will be dispatched to China in order to transfer their bodies to Iran,' Irvash said.