The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) denied on Wednesday the coupmakers are going after former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and told foreign envoys the term "dictatorship" is not warranted.
The message was passed on to 21 military attaches and four embassy representatives based in Bangkok at a meeting with NCPO members led by Lt Gen Supakorn Sa-nguanchartsorakrai, the army deputy chief-of-staff, and Lt Gen Pranot Saengthien, the Intelligence Directorate chief.
The council said there were moves to take action against Ms Yingluck before the coup in May last year, as part of checks-and-balances applicable to all national and local administrative leaders.
"The NCPO is concentrating on administering the country and restoring law and order. It did not interfere in the judicial process," the envoys were told, according to a briefing given to reporters by council spokesman Winthai Suwaree after the meeting at army headquarters.
The council was adhering to its road map to restore democracy to the country, he added.
Ms Yingluck was impeached by the military's handpicked National Legislative Assembly last month for her failure to stop corruption and the massive finance loss to the state in her government's rice-pledging scheme.
She is serving a five-year ban from politics as a result of the impeachment, and was retroactively removed from the post of prime minister.
She could face a criminal charge for alleged dereliction of duty in association with the rice scheme if state prosecutors decide to indict her. The case would be handled by the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders.
The Office of the Attorney-General has confirmed its intention to forward the indictment case to the court by the end of next week.
Ms Yingluck's motorcade was ordered to stop as it was leaving her house in Chiang Mai, heading to a religious ceremony for deceased family members on Tuesday. Soldiers and police checked the vehicles in the convoy, but the army said they did not touch the van carrying the former prime minister.
The army on Wednesday also denied that the former prime minister was being shadowed everywhere she went in Chiang Mai by security officers.
Defence Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwon told reporters at Government House on Wednesday that the check on Ms Yingluck's motorcade was a routine measure provided for important figures, and she was not being singled out.
At the meeting with military diplomats, the NCPO made it clear to them that it felt use of the word "dictatorship" to describe the military regime was misleading to the international community, the spokesman said.
The world did not correctly describe the coupmakers' rule, as all processes were open to public participation, he added.
Martial law remained in place only to prevent political gatherings and facilitate authorities in arresting people suspected of committing offences or planning to stir up trouble, Col Winthai said.