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South Korea's President Park 'willing to resign' | |
(35 minutes later) | |
South Korea's President Park Geun-hye has said she has asked parliament to help her find a way to stand down. | South Korea's President Park Geun-hye has said she has asked parliament to help her find a way to stand down. |
Ms Park has been facing growing calls to resign amid an investigation into whether she allowed a long-time friend to influence political decisions for personal gain. | |
She said she would "leave to parliament everything about my future including shortening of my term". | She said she would "leave to parliament everything about my future including shortening of my term". |
An impeachment motion had been scheduled in parliament on Friday. | |
In a televised address, her third since reports of the scandal began, Ms Park said she would step down "once lawmakers come up with measures to transfer power in a way that minimises any power vacuum and chaos in governance". | |
She has apologised twice before, and said she is "heartbroken", but has refused to stand down. | |
Her friend, Choi Soon-sil, is in police detention, facing a string of charges. | |
Ms Choi is accused of trying to extort huge sums of money from South Korean companies, and suspected of using her friendship with Ms Park to solicit business donations for a non-profit fund she controlled. | |
Investigators believe Ms Park had a "considerable" role in the alleged corruption. | |
Recent weeks have seen huge street protests, with hundreds of thousands of Koreans across the country demanding that she leave office. | |
The BBC's Steve Evans in Seoul says her announcement is not quite a resignation, but an offer to resign later. | |
But it does imply, he adds, that her days in office are now severely limited. |