Cicek: Seventh Adaptation Package not Enough

‘Will the seventh package follow immediately after the sixth one?’ he asked. He said that the expected reforms could not be realized in a single package and that constitutional ammendments were needed to bring some of the reforms into effect. To a question of reducing the number of soldiers in the National Security Council (MGK), Cicek jokingly answered, ‘Have your sentences without the word of soldier’. Following a Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange of Turkey (TOBB)meeting yesterday, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that the package was in its preparation stage and that government wanted to complete the package before parliament adjourned for its summer break. Without giving concrete information about what kind of steps would be taken to "civilianize" the MGK, Gul said: "The General Secretariat of the European Union is studying the necessary arrangements within the framework of fulfilling the Copenhagen Political Criteria. The seventh package is being prepared. We will evaluate the package after the preparations have been completed. What it contains, we do not know yet."