Azerbaijan is sending conflicting signals about its readiness for peace in the wake of the announcement that an Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty is ready for signing.

Since the two states finalized the treaty text on March 13, talk in Azerbaijan has been far more about war than peace. On the same day that Armenia disclosed the treaty text had been finalized, Caliber.az, a news outlet closely aligned by the Azerbaijani government, published a commentary accusing Yerevan of preparing to launch a military offensive.

“A new war with Azerbaijan, … may well break out in a few weeks, after the neighboring country begins to gather reservists in April,” the commentary claimed, contending that Yerevan has engaged in a massive arms buildup in recent years. The Caliber analysis neglected to mention that Azerbaijani defense spending has more than doubled over the past five years and consistently dwarfs Yerevan’s military outlays.

“If a country actively increases its arsenal, focusing on offensive systems, this indicates not only strengthening its defense capability, but also preparation for future military actions,” the commentary alleged.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has issued a series of statements in recent days accusing Armenia of initiating firefights in border areas. A Caliber report on March 18 said Azerbaijani military posts had again come under Armenian small arms fire.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry has steadfastly denied all the reports of armed actions, accusing Azerbaijan of spreading disinformation.

“It is essential to highlight that the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia has proposed the establishment of a joint Armenian-Azerbaijani mechanism for the investigation of ceasefire violations and related incidents,” an Armenian Defense Ministry statement on March 17 noted. “However, Azerbaijan has yet to respond to this proposal.”

Pashinyan, meanwhile, issued a government statement insisting that the government was committed to a “peace agenda,” and calling on Baku “to launch consultations about the date and venue for signing the [peace] agreement.”

In a March 18 statement, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry assailed Pashinyan’s comments, saying that Yerevan was distorting” the realities on the ground and the facts of border area shootings.” The statement also indicated that Azerbaijan possessed video evidence of alleged Armenian transgressions.

“If the Government of Armenia is guided by the agenda of peace as stated by the Prime Minister’s Office, it would be timely to give explanations on how the massive military buildups, especially in border areas, including the deployment of offensive weaponry, serve such an agenda of Armenia,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

Baku reiterated that the Armenian constitution would have to be amended to unequivocally acknowledge Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno Karabakh as a prerequisite to the signing of the peace treaty. The Foreign Ministry statement also indicated that Azerbaijan considers Armenia’s recent proposal concerning a land connection between the Azerbaijani mainland and the Nakhchivan exclave to be unsatisfactory, suggesting that while the treaty text may be considered finalized, other obstacles are still standing in the way of genuine peace.

While state-affiliated media has been full of bellicosity, Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev has embraced a softer approach on a hard negotiating line. In a television interview given the day before the peace treaty announcement, Aliyev described conditions in the South Caucasus as being in “a relatively quiet period.”

He then spoke wistfully of a bygone era, before the Soviet Union’s demise sparked the Karabakh conflict in the late 1980s, when Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived in peace. “We need to … build security mechanisms that will be inclusive, eliminate any threat of another military confrontation, and try to live in the neighborhood as we used to” before the Karabakh conflict began. At the same time, he stressed that regional stability would prove elusive until a peace treaty is signed.

“It's very important not to be late with respect to geopolitical transformation and to concentrate on our regional problems and regional opportunities,” Aliyev said.