U.N. to join Syria talks in Astana, with humanitarian hopes

By Dmitry Solovyov and Tom Miles MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. special envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday he would take part in the latest round of Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday, with a month to go before he hopes to break the deadlock in political talks in Geneva. De Mistura's Geneva peace process reached deadlock this month, missing what said was a "golden opportunity" to close out almost seven years of war. Blaming intransigence on both sides, he told the U.N. Security Council he would start 2018 with a proposal to involve a wider constituency in constitutional and electoral reform, since the warring sides were stuck.