Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called a meeting of the cabinet’s defence committee here on Saturday and the army chief will attend, a government official said, in a possible sign of efforts to defuse tension between the government and the military.

A disputed memo allegedly seeking US help in reining in Pakistan’s powerful military has plunged relations with the government to their lowest point since a coup in 1999.

Federal ministers who are its members, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the services chiefs would attend the meeting chaired by the prime minister. It will be the first meeting of the DCC in which the civilian and military leadership will sit together amid the ongoing tension between the government and the army and try to come out of the tense situation.