Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Special Concerns Rafael Seguis Wednesday was assured of a “good response” from 18 to 20 countries to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Interfaith Dialogue this December, which will be the biggest assembly in Manila this year.

Seguis said African countries have already expressed their support to the NAM Interfaith Dialogue in Manila at the end of the year during the visit of President Arroyo to Libya earlier this month.

Seguis was part of the lean delegation of President Arroyo to Libya.

“We have a good response from all over the world,” Seguis said, adding that there are 18 to 20 countries that have confirmed their attendance to the assembly. He however did not name the countries which already confirmed to the NAM in Manila.

The NAM Interfaith Dialogue will be held in Manila from December 1 to 3 this year. It will be a gathering of 118 member-states for interfaith cooperation among countries, and will focus on peace and development.

It was originally scheduled last May 18 to 20 but intervening factors such as the Ministerial Meeting of NAM Coordinating Bureau in Havana, Cuba, and the 36th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in Damascus, Syria, both held in the same month, were also participated by the same groups that the NAM had to be moved later within the year in a bid to maximize the participation of member countries.

The NAM, of which the Philippines is one of the 118 member-states, is an international organization that aims to ensure “national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."

NAM member-states represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' members and comprise 55 percent of the world population, particularly countries considered to be developing or part of the third world. It was founded in April 1955.