About 31,700 people attended an opposition rally on Thursday, May 9 in yerevan demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his decision to cede several border villages to Azerbaijan, the Union of Informed Citizens reports.

Pashinyan said in April Armenia would cede the uninhabited villages in what both sides said was an important milestone as they edge towards a peace deal after fighting two wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Protesters led by a senior Armenian cleric reached Yerevan on Thursday after walking for several days from a village in the country's northeast, a distance of some 160 km.

Video posted by Armenian media on Thursday showed a crowd of thousands of people gathering in Yerevan's central Republic Square and waving Armenian flags.

"Nikol Pashinyan, we are giving you an hour to resign", the cleric, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, was cited by Armenian media as saying.

"You no longer have any authority in Armenia".