The Most Civilian Army Briefing

However, at the beginning of the briefing, Major GEneral Demirezen said that "The date of our meeting was decided solely according to the calendar of our headquarters."

During the low-profile meeting, Demirezen made an introduction , including Cyprus and Iraq, with a very neutral tone. In the previous briefing, Army General Basbug had been carried to banner headlines of dailies when he said that "Enormous blood will be shed if an ethnic federation is established in Iraq." The generals also displayed a certain distance towards the Cyprus issue and did not even mention the name of UN Secretary General. But they referred clearly, to the Annan Plan.

The majority of the questions of the press to the generals, was about Cyprus. When asked whether there was a difference between the road map of the government on Cyprus, and the one of the Turkish Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Babaoglu gave a careful response, saying, "TSK has always supported a fair and lasting solution in Cyprus. The views stated by TSK to the government have remained the same. We expect that the talks under way, produce a solution responding to the security needs of both Turkish and Turkish Cypriot people. "

General Babaoglu refused to comment on the "Pleading" of the Prime Minister from the Press to impose an auto-censor.