South Korea’s main opposition party urged President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign immediately or face impeachment, hours after Yoon ended short-lived martial law.

By Hyonhee Shin, Cynthia Kim, Ju-min Park, Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) -At his confirmation hearing three months ago, South Korea's defence minister Kim Yong-hyun rejected accusations from the opposition that he wanted to impose martial law.

South Korean lawmakers began impeachment proceedings against President Yoon Suk Yeol after he briefly imposed martial law and then reversed course on that decision just hours later. Yoon claimed martial law was necessary to protect the country from "North Korea's communist forces" and to "eliminate anti-state elements.

It may seem that the wild predawn scenes in Seoul, with hundreds of armed troops and frantic lawmakers storming South Korea's parliament building after the president suddenly declared martial law, cam

Though martial law isn't well defined in U.S. law, it has been imposed at the state and federal level to respond to emergencies.