South Korea was to open a new war remains identification center Wednesday to more efficiently carry out its project to discover and identify the remains of soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, the defense ministry said.

The ministry was to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the three-story identification center built at the national cemetery in Seoul. The center houses laboratories for gene testing and data analysis, ministry officials said.

Previously, DNA testing equipment was at the Criminal Investigation Command in the defense ministry compound, apart from the agency in charge of the project located at the national cemetery.

"With the completion of building the new identification center, the agency is expected to become the world's only organization with an integrated system that covers the whole procedure from recovery to identification," the ministry said in a release.

Around 140,000 South Korean troops were killed in action and some 450,000 others injured during the three-year war. The number of fallen South Korean troops whose remains have yet to be recovered stands at around 123,000. (Yonhap)