THE rumour mill went into overdrive on Tuesday with the news and images of an ‘extraordinary’ meeting between government ministers and the military high command.

Given the context — and paucity of information regarding the substance of the meeting — the images were pored over to examine the body language, and the text of the accompanying press release parsed ad infinitum to get some idea of what the meeting was all about.

Reports from some sources suggest that the discussion revolved around Afghanistan and the peace process under way between the government and Afghan Taliban groups, and that it possibly had a connection with the army chief’s visit to Beijing in May — on a day when Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah was also present in the city.

This belief was reinforced by the army chief’s meeting the Chinese ambassador immediately after the session with the government leadership. Beyond that, we are all left guessing at the substance of the conversation, and what was decided.

It is fair to say that whatever is going on regarding Pakistan’s involvement in the peace process in Afghanistan should be more transparent, and efforts should be made to build a wider consensus amongst the democratic leadership before any commitments are made to foreign powers.

And equally importantly, the optics that came out of the meeting only fuelled further chatter about civil-military relations. This is damaging for the conduct of foreign policy and creates ambiguity about who is calling the shots.

The visuals of the meeting and text of the accompanying press release gave the impression that this was less of a discussion and more of a one-way communication of priorities.

The meeting ought to have been held in Islamabad rather than Rawalpindi, so as to not fuel the perception that the government ministers had been ‘summoned’ to GHQ to receive instructions.

If wheels are turning on the foreign policy front it can be potentially self-defeating if the effort should, at the very outset, make the government leadership appear weak and subordinate to the military authorities.

Especially at this delicate time, with the prime minister out of the country and the political situation still not out of the woods, it becomes all the more crucial to ensure that it is the message of civilian supremacy in the running of the country’s affairs that is sent out to the Pakistani public — and the rest of the world.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2016