Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced an official Israeli support to creation of an independent Kurdish state in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister’s office released a statement claiming that Israel “supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own“.

The statement came ahead an independence referendum of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region scheduled for September 25. Thus, Prime Minister Netanyahu became the first head of state to support the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Netanyahu added that he was not referring to the efforts of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to establish an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.

“Israel rejects the PKK and considers it a terrorist organization, as opposed to Turkey, which supports the terror organization Hamas,” he said.

However, it does not look like this will be enough to keep a nice relations with Ankara that strongly opposes to creation of any Kurdish state near or even inside its borders.