The Republic of Korea is probing reports that top military officials played golf last weekend instead of tending to surging tensions with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

Various newspapers reported that a military golf course in Seoul was crowded with senior army officers, including ranking generals, on Saturday and Sunday.

The ROK is currently bracing for a possible military provocation from the DPRK. "The office of the senior civil affairs secretary has immediately launched an inquiry to determine what has exactly happened regarding the reports about military golf," presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung told reporters.

The defense ministry confirmed some generals had played golf on the weekend, but stressed they did not include commanders in sensitive positions.

Golf is enormously popular in the ROK. In 2006, then prime minister Lee Hae-chan stepped down after a golf outing with businessmen sparked a criminal investigation into alleged influence-peddling.

In 2007, the air force chief resigned after playing golf while the country was mourning the death of a Korean soldier in Afghanistan, and in 2009 the defense ministry sacked the military's chief medical officer and court-martialed 50 military doctors for playing while on duty.

AFP

(China Daily 03/12/2013 page11)