PAKISTAN suffers such relentless violence that any peace effort may seem worth a try. Last week Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, nominated four representatives for talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group for dozens of violent outfits known in shorthand as the Pakistani Taliban. In return, the Taliban offered five names of its own. A meeting for initial talks about talks was hastily scheduled for February 4th, in Islamabad, the capital. Already early momentum is turning to farce.

These first talks were called off amid growing scepticism and news of more bombs. The TTP looks unready to accept minimum preconditions: a ceasefire and recognition of Pakistan’s constitution. Nominees on both sides lack authority. On the government team is a man close to an opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice or PTI), a journalist, a political adviser and an ex-spy known for meddling in party politics. The Taliban put forward rigid religious types, yet none of them was a TTP member. They also, embarrassingly for him, asked a former cricketer, Imran Khan, head of the PTI, to bat for them. He quickly refused, though Mr Khan’s party, which runs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has renewed its offer of an office for the Taliban to use—like the majority in the province (and Mr Khan himself), the Taliban are ethnic Pushtuns.

Just possibly negotiations could start, though it remains unclear over what, beyond prisoner releases. Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to America, recently told a Delhi think-tank that it was futile to engage with the Taliban. “You can’t negotiate with someone who wants to move our country into the eighth century,” he said. The TTP wants political control over swathes of territory and the imposition of strict sharia law. But Pakistan’s chronic failing is precisely the state’s weak writ. Ceding more space to extremists would invite more violence, not less.

Amir Rana of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad points to another problem. Little thought has been given to the potential role, as spoiler, of perhaps hundreds of Central Asian and other foreign militants in Pakistan, including members of al-Qaeda, who are TTP allies and opposed to negotiations. And given the Taliban’s own fractious affiliates, doubts exist over whether the TTP leaders could impose their will if a deal were ever struck. In any case, says Ahmed Rashid, a writer in Lahore who has long studied Islamist groups, the TTP’s “semi-literate” members are more ideological even than the better-known Taliban in Afghanistan.

Not that peace talks over the border with the Taliban’s Afghan counterparts are easy either. This week the New York Times suggested that the Afghan Taliban had held two months of secret negotiations with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, beginning late last year. But these have since collapsed, achieving nothing except even more bitter mistrust of Mr Karzai on the part of the United States.

Back in Pakistan, the Americans will watch warily, too. Recently Mr Sharif had seemed ready to consider launching a military operation against the TTP. America lent him political cover by reducing anti-militant drone strikes on Pakistani territory. Yet if Mr Sharif is seen to grow soft on his enemies, such American forbearance might not last. Nor would the army cheer on peace talks for long if TTP attacks continue. The army chief, Raheel Sharif, has enjoyed cordial relations with the prime minister (no relation) since taking up his post in November. But the general will want to resume assaults of the sort conducted last month against the TTP in North Waziristan if conditions turn against his soldiers. If talks do go ahead, a breakdown remains a more likely conclusion than a breakthrough.