AP Interview: Kremlin support for Assad not unconditional

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov speaks with The Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 6, 2017. Peskov tells The Associated Press that Russia's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad is not unconditional, with Putin's Spokesman talking just days after a suspected chemical weapons attack on a Syrian rebel-held province.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) (The Associated Press)

MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin's spokesman tells The Associated Press that Russia's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad is not unconditional.

Dmitry Peskov spoke two days after a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held province. Moscow, Assad's key backer, has been supporting the Syrian government militarily since 2015.

Turkey said Thursday that autopsies of Syrian victims from this week's assault in Idlib province, which happened 60 miles from the Turkish border, show they were subjected to chemical weapons.

The Syrian government maintains it didn't use chemical weapons, instead blaming the rebels for stockpiling the deadly chemicals. Russia's Defense Ministry says the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory on the town's eastern outskirts.