Commander of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti has requested a joint investigation into the leakage to the media of a new military operation plan signed recently with the South Korean military, according to a parliamentary audit into Seoul's Defense Ministry.

"It is a fact that there has been a request (from Scaparrotti) for a joint probe," Cho Hyun-chun, the head of the Defense Security Command, said in response to a lawmaker's query on the recent media coverage of the new OPLAN 2015 during the parliamentary audit session.

Adding to the admission, Defense Minister Han Min-koo said the USFK commander raised a complaint over the media coverage of OPLAN

2015 during their meeting last month to review the performance of their joint Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise. 

An investigation had already been started before Scaparrotti made such comments, Han said.

"It is a matter of interpretation to view the combined forces commander's (Scaparrotti) raising issues as a request for a joint probe," he claimed.

A number of news outlets, including Yonhap News Agency, reported the signing of the new operation plan in June, which replaced the allies' decades-old OPLAN 5027, to increase their focus on the removal of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs.

Asked to confirm the signing, the USFK's public affairs office said at that time they were not allowed to make mention of the operation plan's name to the media because it was confidential.

Referring to the investigation, the Ministry of National Defense said in a news release later on Thursday that the Defense Security Command commenced the investigation into the leakage on Aug. 28 right after the media reports. (Yonhap)