[custom_adv] In a joint statement read out by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the trio met U.N. [custom_adv] Syria peace envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva, they said the new initiative should be guided “by a sense of compromise and constructive engagement”. [custom_adv] The foreign ministers of the three nations had hoped to seal their joint proposal on a committee - which could usher in elections - and win U.N. blessing for it. [custom_adv] But the statement by the three made no mention of the composition of the panel, pointing to lingering disagreement over lists of candidates submitted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel adversaries. [custom_adv] Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking to Turkish state media, said only that the three powers had made “important contributions” to the creation of the panel and that suggested names were assessed. [custom_adv] “The U.N. will of course carry out necessary work on the nominated names in the coming process,” Cavusoglu said. [custom_adv] De Mistura, addressing a separate news conference, made clear the three powers had not nailed down a workable political forum yet, after years of abortive attempts at ending a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced around half of Syria’s pre-war 22 million population. [custom_adv] A year ago, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described Assad as a terrorist and said it was impossible for Syrian peacemaking efforts to continue with him.