IT is fast becoming a Sunday tradition of sorts: Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan appearing before the cameras and holding forth on a range of subjects, most notably the chimera of talks with the TTP. If it were simply about one of the senior-most government representatives trying to keep the public and the media in the loop about important national issues, the Nisar-on-Sunday press conferences would be a welcome addition to the public discourse. But the motives appear to be more cynical than high-minded. For the interior minister is the very same individual who has muzzled high-profile national organisations that fall under his watch — from Nadra to the Frontier Corps and from the passport agency to the Rangers — and who seems more obsessed with controlling the flow of information than focusing on the core aspects of his job. So, not coincidentally, now the minister has chosen the weekly holiday to hold forth on his views — and capture the headlines on what is traditionally a slow news day.

Of late, interior ministers have appeared to have a penchant for the media spotlight. But as Rehman Malik discovered, so too might Nisar Ali Khan: wanting to say something of relevance or import isn’t the same thing as saying something of relevance or import. Yet again on Sunday, the interior minister offered his contradictory assessment of the state of dialogue with the TTP: the TTP is not really interested in talks, the minister said, but the government is adamant that talks can in fact succeed. That would be silliness of the highest order — if the stakes were not so incredibly high. The interior minister appears to have staked his personal reputation on the success of talks with the Taliban — but characteristically for much of this government, he does not appear to have done any of his homework. Now, having learned of the difficulties that talks entail, Nisar Ali Khan is demonstrating that other great shortcoming of many Pakistani leaders: an inability to accept that they were wrong in their original prescription. Unhappily, while the interior minister can try and make a tradition out of Sunday grandstanding, that does little to address the fearful problems he has to contend with on the country’s behalf.