US Secretary of State John Kerry: Assad will not join Syria's transitional leaders

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not be part of any new transitional government, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday at the start of a peace conference. "We need to deal with reality here...mutual consent which is what has brought us here for a transitional government means that that government cannot be formed by someone that is objected to by one side or not," Kerry said in an opening statement. "That means that Bashar al-Assad will not be part of that transitional government. There is no way, not possible in the imagination, that the man who has lead the brutal response to his own people could regain legitimacy to govern.