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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has denied the surrender of sovereign Armenian territories to Azerbaijan as part of the border delimitation and demarcation in the village of Kirants earlier this year.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Pashinyan stressed the importance of securing the country's internationally recognized territory as a buffer and hailed the delimitation in Kirants as a “success story”.

"There has been talk about the inadmissibility of the USSR maps, a non-existent country. I must say frankly that this approach is very dangerous for Armenia, as rejecting the Soviet-era maps could imply rejecting statehood and independence. We gained independence on the territory of Soviet Armenia, and the international community recognized us as such," the primer wrote.

"if we do not clearly recognize our internationally recognized territory, we give others the opportunity to deny it, citing our own statements, and we open the door to others.

"In the village of Kirants, we did not surrender sovereign Armenian territories, we secured our gate, the border of our state, the threshold of our state, and I consider this a success story, a turning point," he stated.

Pashinyan said that the examination of some cadastral certificates issued to the Kirants residents raised doubts about their legality.

"Unfortunately, such practices are not uncommon in Armenia. Let’s not forget that all these areas – both Kirants and Khairimli – were part of the same state, and the residents of both villages had the same passports," he added.