S. Korea's Park voices willingness to resign before term ends

In a nationally televised address, Park said, "I will entrust the National Assembly with (the task of) making decisions on issues, including the shortening of my presidential term."

"If the ruling and opposition parties discuss and come up with measures to minimize the turmoil and the vacuum in state affairs and to ensure a stable transition of power, I will resign from the presidency according to the agreed timetable and legal procedures," she added.

If she does step down before her five-year term ends in February 2018, it would be the first time for a South Korean president to do so since the country's democratization in 1987.

An election to choose her successor would then have to be held within 60 days, in line with the Constitution.

Park, 64, the country's first female president, has been under pressure to step down from the public and lawmakers, including her allies in the ruling Saenuri Party.

Prosecutors announced on Nov. 20 that Park is a suspect in a widening investigation into the scandal that involves her close friend Choi Soon Sil and two former presidential secretaries.

She is the first South Korean president ever to face a criminal investigation.

In her third public statement since the scandal broke in late October, Park apologized anew "for having caused serious concerns by my carelessness." She did not respond to any questions from the media.

Her previous two apologies did little to sooth public anger.

"Watching the people broken-hearted (over the scandal), I think it is more than natural to make an apology 100 times," she said in the five-minute address, while expressing hope that the country will return to the state it was in before the scandal surfaced.

But Choo Mi Ae, head of South Korea's main opposition party Democratic Party of Korea, dismissed Park's offer to resign and leave her political future in the hands of parliament as a "trick to escape impeachment," and said the process to file an impeachment motion against Park will continue.

Opposition parties are moving toward putting the impeachment motion to vote at the opposition-controlled National Assembly as early as Friday.

While some Saenuri lawmakers have reportedly joined with the opposition to demand her impeachment, the outlook for that is unclear, pundits say.

Yonhap News Agency quoted a Saenuri member as saying he wants the opposition camp to reconsider the impeachment plan, in the wake of Park's offer to step down. Impeachment requires the support of more than 28 members of the ruling party.

Park's approval rating sank to a record-low of 4 percent last week, and hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets of Seoul and other major cities for the past five weekends to demand her resignation.

Park has refused to submit to questioning by prosecutors, with her office saying she prefers to face a probe by a "balanced" and "neutral" independent counsel.

Under the Constitution, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for less than serious criminal offenses such as insurrection. However, a president can be punished if he or she resigns or is impeached.

Also Tuesday, the opposition parties recommended two candidates for an independent counsel to investigate the scandal, separate from the prosecution's investigation, Yonhap reported. The president is expected to select one by Friday.

The probe team, expected to begin its work next month, will consist of 105 staffers, including 20 prosecutors, and has a mandate to investigate the scandal for up to four months.

Choi, a private citizen with no government post, has been indicted on charges of using her relationship with Park to win sizeable donations from corporations for her nonprofit foundations.

Dubbed as the "shadow president" in local media, Choi is also under fire for illegally meddling in state affairs and accessing classified documents, when she has no security clearance.

Park is the daughter of the late President Park Chung Hee, who rose to power through a military coup in 1961 and ruled the country until his assassination in 1979.

She served as the country's first lady at the age of 22, when her mother was shot dead by a North Korean sympathizer in 1974. Five years later, her father was assassinated by his intelligence chief.