In a dramatic and unnanounced move, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on Tuesday in a live broadcast on YTN television. Yoon did not specify exactly what measures would be taken but justified the decision as necessary to ‘safeguard constitutional order’.

Yoon accused opposition parties, which have a majority in the South Korean parliament, of taking the parliamentary process hostage, a reference presumably to a motion by the opposition Democratic party to impeach some of the country’s top prosecutors and the rejection of the government’s recent budget proposal.