Peru's Kuczynski says will not resign over Odebrecht scandal

FILE PHOTO:Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski attends a binational cabinet meeting at the Government Palace in Lima, Peru, September 1, 2017. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo/ File photo

Thomson Reuters

LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said late on Thursday that he would not resign over a scandal involving payments that Brazilian builder Odebrecht paid a decade ago to a company he controlled while holding public office.

In a televised address to the nation flanked by members of his cabinet, Kuczynski denied any wrongdoing and said that while he owned the company, Westfield Capital Ltd, he was not manager of it when it received the payments.

Prior to the message, the leaders of several parties in the opposition-controlled Congress said they would seek to oust him if he would not resign.

(Reporting by Mitra Taj and Marco Aquino; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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