UN envoy’s attitude to Syrian constitutional committee isn’t clear – Putin

It is hard to understand the attitude of the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to forming a Syrian constitutional committee, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Speaking at his annual end-of-year news conference on Thursday, the president said: “We presented a list to the UN.” UN officials, including de Mistura, “have adopted a wait-and-see attitude at the behest of our German, French and US partners,” Putin noted. “I can’t understand what is going on there but in any case, the work is in the final stage.” The list of Syrian constitutional committee members will be ready either at the end of 2018 or in early 2019, Putin said, adding that “the next stage of the settlement process will begin, a political one.”