WASHINGTON, July 22: Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador here, Maleeha Lodhi, warned on Sunday that the war against terrorism can only be decisively won if the root causes are addressed and hearts and minds won.

In a farewell interview to Cable News Network’s Wolf Blitzer, she rejected the suggestion that the majority in Pakistan did not support the government’s decision to join the United States-led war on terror.

“Because we have had ups and downs in our bilateral relations, people in Pakistan do ask whether the US will remain engaged in our region on a sustained basis,” she said. This, she said, could not be construed as opposing the war on terror.

Welcoming assurance by the Bush administration that this time the US was there for a long haul, Maleeha Lodhi said that despite recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, “we will not waver in our resolve and we will not be deterred in carrying this process forward.”

But she warned that to win the war against terrorism, “we must also win the hearts and minds of people.”

She said that despite the “dispersal” of Al Qaida elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “we have not wavered in our resolve to fight terrorism because the people are with us.”

The ambassador described the Western speculations about a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as “irresponsible” and said that a nuclear conflict in the region was “unthinkable”.