South Korea's three main opposition parties have agreed to stick to their plans to impeach President Park Geun-hye, dismissing as a stalling tactic her offer to resign if parliament arranges a safe transfer of power.
Park's conditional resignation offer on Tuesday came as she faces nosediving approval ratings and massive street rallies calling for her ouster amid a huge political scandal involving her and a longtime shadowy confidante.
"The people of South Korea do not want to enter the new year with Park Geun-hye as president," Choo Mi-ae, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said at the start of the meeting. "There is only one way under our constitution to halt a term of a president and that's an impeachment motion."
After the meeting, the three parties told a joint news conference that Park must step down immediately without setting any conditions and that their push for her impeachment remains unchanged.
The opposition parties agreed to put an impeachment motion to a vote as early as this Friday or meet again if this plan doesn't work, according to Yonhap news agency.
On Tuesday Park continued to deny accusations by prosecutors that she colluded in the criminal activities of her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, who, despite having no official role in government, allegedly had a say in policy decisions and exploited her presidential ties to bully companies into giving large sums of money to businesses and foundations that Choi controlled.
