U.N. says Astana meeting on Syria a missed opportunity, no progress

GENEVA (Reuters) - Russia, Turkey and Iran failed to make any tangible progress in setting up a Syrian constitutional committee at a meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana, the office of U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement on Thursday.

"Special Envoy de Mistura deeply regrets ... there was no tangible progress in overcoming the ten-month stalemate on the composition of the constitutional committee," it said.

"This was the last occasion of an Astana meeting in 2018 and has, sadly for the Syrian people, been a missed opportunity to accelerate the establishment of a credible, balanced and inclusive, Syrian-owned, Syrian-led, UN-facilitated constitutional committee."

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)