SEOUL, South Korea — President Yoon Suk Yeol became the first sitting South Korean leader to be detained for questioning on criminal charges today, striking a deal with massed law enforcement officials and ending a weekslong standoff.

Yoon’s security guards successfully blocked the investigators from detaining him on Jan. 3. Since then, the country has been gripped by fears that a violent clash might occur if both sides refused to back down.

But when the investigators returned Wednesday with far more police officers, some of them carrying ladders to scale barricades, Yoon’s bodyguards put up no obvious resistance.

Yoon will now face questioning from officials investigating his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. The investigators can now question him for 48 hours and then could apply for a separate court warrant to formally arrest him.

The opposition-led National Assembly raced to vote down that declaration, and has accused him of committing insurrection by sending armed troops into the Assembly to seize the legislature and to detain his political enemies.

— The New York Times