Unable to expand variable '...' . A cyclical reference was detected

I have an issue with azure pipelines. I'm trying to create a template so I can push multiple instances like dev and qa. Since Azure doesn't support using variable groups in the template I'm passing them to the template using paramethers. The issue is that I'm getting this error:

##[warning]Unable to expand variable 'TOKEN_QA'. A cyclical reference was detected.

Any ideas how to resolve this issue?

name: ...

trigger: none

variables:
- group: api-mgmt-...-qa
- name: token_qa
  value: $(TOKEN_QA)
- name: project_qa
  value: $(PROJECT_ID_QA)
- group: api-mgmt-...-dev
- name: token_dev
  value: $(TOKEN_DEV)
- name: project_dev
  value: $(PROJECT_ID_DEV)
 
pool:
  name: '...'
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

stages:
  - stage: "DEV_Deploy"
    dependsOn: []
    jobs:
      - template: ./api-publish_deployment.yml
        parameters:
          env: "dev"
          token: ${{variables.token_dev}}
          project: ${{variables.project_dev}}

  - stage: "QA_Deploy"
    dependsOn: 
    - "DEV_Deploy"
    jobs:
      - template: ./api-publish_deployment.yml
        parameters:
          env: "qa"
          token: ${{variables.token_qa}}
          project: ${{variables.project_qa}}

parameters:
  - name: env
    type: string
    values:
      - dev
      - qa
  - name: token
    type: string
  - name: project
    type: string
  
jobs:
  - job: Publish_Api
    displayName: Publish API on ${{parameters.env}}
    steps:
      - checkout: self
        path: $(Build.Repository.Name)

      - task: GoTool@0
        displayName: Install Go $(goVersion)
        inputs:
          version: '1.19'

      - task: Bash@3
        displayName: Publish API
        env:
          IDENTIFIER: ...
          BASEURL: ...
          PROJECT: ${{ parameters.project }}
          STAGE: ${{ parameters.env }}
          TOKEN: ${{ parameters.token }}
        inputs:
          targetType: 'inline'
          script: |
            echo $IDENTIFIER $BASEURL $PROJECT $STAGE
            stackit-api-manager project publish \
             --identifier $IDENTIFIER \
             --baseURL $BASEURL \
             --project $PROJECT \
             --stage $STAGE \
             --token $TOKEN \
             --oas config/... .yml

      - script: go clean -modcache
        displayName: Cleanup Go mod folder

Have just had the same warning message on a pipeline where the resolution was: remove the unused secret variable

This warning message was displayed for every step, but that variable was no longer referenced anywhere in the YAML pipeline.