South Korea on Thursday repatriated the remains of 36 Chinese soldiers who were killed fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War in the latest follow-up to an agreement reached by the two countries, the defense ministry said.

The repatriation is the third of its kinds since South Korea and China agreed in 2014 to bring back the remains of Chinese soldiers who were killed while fighting alongside North Korean soldiers during the civil war.

From 2014-15, the remains of a total of 505 Chinese soldiers were sent home.

South Korean and Chinese defense officials held a repatriation ceremony at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day before sending the remains to China.

"The repatriation of remains has become a new opportunity to cleanse war-wrought scars and to take the friendship between South Korea and China one step further," the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement. (Yonhap)