DAMASCUS (Agencies) – Syria opened a “national dialogue” on Sunday that it hailed as a step towards multi-party democracy after five decades of Baath Party rule, but its credibility was undermined by an opposition boycott, Agence France-Presse reported.

The foreign ministry, meanwhile, called in the French and US ambassadors to deliver a “strong protest” over their visit to the flashpoint central city of Hama last week, the state news agency SANA said.

Some 200 delegates taking part in the dialogue, including independent MPs and members of the Baath Party, in power since 1963, observed a minute’s silence in memory of the “martyrs” before the playing of the national anthem.

But opposition figures boycotted the meeting in protest at the government’s continued deadly crackdown on unprecedented protests that erupted in mid-March against President Bashar Assad’s rule, according to AFP.

“We are going to hold a comprehensive national dialogue during which we will announce Syria’s transition towards a multi-party democratic state in which everyone will be equal and able to participate in the building of the nation’s future,” Vice President Farouk Sharaa said in his opening address.

“This dialogue is beginning at an awkward moment and in a climate of suspicion… and there are many obstacles, some natural and some manufactured, to a transition towards another point,” Sharaa said.

“This dialogue is not a concession by the government to the people but an obligation for every citizen.”

Sharaa said that within a week the interior ministry would implement a government decision to “remove all obstacles to any citizen returning to Syria or travelling abroad”.