diff --git a/profiles/releases/17.0/package.mask b/profiles/releases/17.0/package.mask
index 943ae2b6a65ca..eb99442c7b576 100644
--- a/profiles/releases/17.0/package.mask
+++ b/profiles/releases/17.0/package.mask
@@ -4,3 +4,10 @@
 # Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org> (27 May 2017)
 # Require a gcc here that uses C++14 or later as default setting
 <sys-devel/gcc-6
+
+# Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org> (27 May 2017)
+# We can unmask ICU 59 and later now we for sure have a recent GCC
+# Note: "and later" is safe here since the profiles/package.mask
+# still overrides.
+->=dev-libs/icu-59
+->=dev-libs/icu-layoutex-59
diff --git a/profiles/releases/17.0/package.unmask b/profiles/releases/17.0/package.unmask
deleted file mode 100644
index bd225f52412cb..0000000000000
--- a/profiles/releases/17.0/package.unmask
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
-# Copyright 1999-2017 Gentoo Foundation
-# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
-
-# Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org> (27 May 2017)
-# We can unmask ICU 59 and later now we for sure have a recent GCC
-# Note: "and later" is safe here since the profiles/package.mask
-# still overrides.
->=dev-libs/icu-59
->=dev-libs/icu-layoutex-59