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The Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MoESCS) has officially denied Azerbaijan’s false reports about attempts to erase the "Albanian traces" from Armenian cultural and historical monuments.

Recent Azerbaijani media reports allege that the reinforcement, repair and restoration of Armenian monuments located in the delimited border area and not only are aimed at eliminating the so-called "Albanian traces" from them.

"The reports are blatantly false and yet another evidence of Azerbaijan's manipulative policy of falsifying historical facts," the culture ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

In particular, the church of Kirants, a village in Armenia’s Tavush Province, was built in the 19th century from local rough-hewn stone and is a three-nave Armenian temple-basilica.

The upper part of the south window of the sacristy has an inscription with the year of construction in 1888, and on the right side there is an inscription in Armenian.

In the Soviet era, the church was turned into a warehouse. In 2024, the monument will be reinforced, repaired and restored through the funds allocated by the Armenian government, and scientific and design documentation will be drawn up for the installation of a rotunda bell tower.

The Holy Mother of God Church in the village of Voskepar in Tavush Province was built in the 7th century. Its design is that of a cruciform central plan, the "Mastara" type. The church was reconstructed in 1975–1977, but its roof and other parts were damaged due to rains. They will be restored with public funds this year.

The early Christian Yereruyk temple in Armenia's Shirak Province, which the Azerbaijani propaganda machine falsely claims to be a Turkic monument, is inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List and is among Europa Nostra's endangered monuments.

The reinforcement and restoration program of Yereruyk is implemented within the framework of cooperation between the MoESCS and the U.S. Embassy in Armenia, with financial support from the U.S. Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation.

“The preservation, restoration and popularization of Armenia’s historical and cultural heritage is among the the priorities of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports,” it said.

“We urge the competent authorities in Azerbaijan to stop distorting historical facts and to ensure the preservation of Armenian historical and cultural monuments under Azerbaijani control, in particular, to provide access for an international observation mission to monitor the Armenian monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh,” reads the statement.