Yoon stares down on South Korean impeachment vote lined up for Sat

SOUTH Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed on Thursday to fight "until the very last minute" in a defiant address defending his shock decision to declare martial law and deploy troops to the country's parliament last week.

The South Korean leader is barred from foreign travel as part of a probe into his inner circle over the dramatic events of December 3-4 that stunned Seoul's allies and threw the country into some of its deepest political turmoil in years.

Yoon, staring down an impeachment vote in parliament on Saturday, vowed to "fight with the people until the very last minute".

He went on the attack against the opposition, accusing it of pushing the country into a "national crisis".