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.
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.
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.
The region's already meager electricity generation capacity is in jeopardy, and an "environmental disaster" could be at hand, the local de facto authorities say.
In 2020, Azerbaijan won back many of the water resources it had lost to Armenians in the 1990s. But the biggest source still eludes it, and farmers are still struggling.