The head of Egypt's ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, said in Cairo late Tuesday that the council has accepted the resignation of the caretaker government led by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

In a televised address to the nation, Tantawi announced that the presidential elections will take place by July 2012 and the military regime will hand over power back to a civilian government before July 1 that year.

"The military does not expect to keep power," Tantawi said, adding that the military "is ready to hand over power immediately if people wish so" through a referendum.

Sharaf's cabinet decided to quit en masse Sunday after clashes between protestors and riot police left a number of people dead and hundreds of others injured.

Tantawi also said the Nov. 28 parliamentary elections will go ahead as scheduled and the military will not meddle in the polls.

The military does not "care about who will win" and "it's up to the people to decide who will rule," he said.

He denied that the military is responsible for the deaths resulting from the latest round of violence hitting Cairo and other cities in recent days.

The Egyptian army "never killed a single Egyptian man or woman, " said Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who took over the power after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in February amid popular protests.

It's not clear whether Tantawi's address would defuse the ongoing crisis in Egypt, which has been rocked by massive protests for five days.

Some protestors said they would continue to stay in the square until a new government is formed. They also demanded a civilian committee to take the power during the transitional period.

While Tantawi was delivering the speech, tens of thousands of protestors were gathering in the landmark Tahrir Square in central Cairo, demanding his departure. Protestors say they were angry about the slow pace of reforms. But others supported the decision of the army.

On Tuesday night, some protestors began slowly to leave the square. A Xinhua reporter said that he could still feel the smell of tear gas at the entrance of a street leading to the premises of the Interior Ministry building, the center of recent clashes between security forces and protestors in Cairo.

The army's response still left some questions unanswered, such as the constitutional principles, which became one of the major issues leading the mass protests. It posed new questions, such as a referendum, if people wish, for the army to hand over power.

On Monday, the military council issued a decree to ban all those who corrupted political life in Egypt. The ban was also a demand by many political forces in order to prevent the former regime remnants to regain power.

But the law is believed to be too late, as many former members of the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) submitted their candidacy applications in different ways. Legal experts said court orders were needed to disqualify the NDP candidates.

Therefore, the participation of the former regime members remained a possible focus of disagreement among political forces.

At least 28 people have died and about 2,000 were injured in clashes between protestors and riot police across the country since Friday.

Sacking Sharaf's cabinet is one of the key demands of protestors, who also call for setting a date for the ruling military council to transfer power to a civilian authority and holding presidential elections before mid-2012.

The military council has reportedly approached Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog IAEA, for the prime minister's position. ElBaradei led the National Coalition for Change, a group which participated in the anti-government protests earlier this year.

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