Soyudlu residents' protest last month appears to have borne fruit, but the village is still under lockdown. And more people have been arrested for showing solidarity.
The de facto president and other officials are camped out in tents in Stepanakert's central square demanding that Armenia and Russia take action to end Azerbaijan's blockade.
Ilham Aliyev asserted that Soyudlu residents have the right to protest in the face of environmental hazards, though he also backed the police, who brutally suppressed their demonstration.
Azerbaijan has long resented France's alleged pro-Armenian stances. Now it is couching criticism of these stances in a broader critique of Paris' "neocolonialism."
Law enforcement continues to control movement in and out of the village of Soyudlu. More people have been arrested as well, including a former MP who represented the area.
Azerbaijan shut down all traffic between Nagorno-Karabakh and the outside world on June 15, exacerbating shortages and preventing patients from seeking urgent medical care.
Azerbaijan, which had been pressing hard for a resolution, has eased off following the Turkish elections and their establishment of a border post in Karabakh.
Roughly a month after Azerbaijan installed a border post on the Lachin corridor, a small but growing number of Karabakh Armenians are using the route. But there is still strong social pressure against doing so.
Ahmad Obali, a prominent proponent of Azerbaijani nationalism in Iran and virulent critic of the Islamic Republic, refused to speak about who might have attacked him.
The self-proclaimed environmental activists, who blocked the key road to Nagorno-Karabakh for nearly 140 days, now complain that their government is neglecting them.
Aliyev's threatening rhetoric makes clear his government will ignore exhortations to sit down for talks with representatives of the entity he considers anathema to Azerbaijan.