Being a co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group, Russia's main role in this conflict is that of a mediator. On 2 October 2020, along with the other two co-chairs of the Group, France and the U.S., it called for immediate cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, and asked both sides to continue negotiations without preconditions. On 6 October 2020, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed concern about the involvement of Syrian and Libyan fighters in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with the possible support of Turkey. Both Russia and Armenia are part of a mutual defence pact. However, on 8 October 2020, President Vladimir Putin expressed that the fighting is not happening on the territory of Armenia and therefore Russia would not intervene in the current conflict. He also affirmed Russia's good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. On 9 October 2020, Lavrov mediated a ceasefire after 10 hours of talks between Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers in Moscow. The ceasefire was quickly broken. On 22 October 2020, Putin indicated that the root of the conflict lines in interethnic clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the 1980s, and specifically referred to the pogrom of Armenians in Sumgait.