diff --git a/roles/kubernetes/node/templates/kubelet.j2 b/roles/kubernetes/node/templates/kubelet.j2
index 829d1f0be3c7bca7caec5efac79bf2ec2116290e..9bead7a39ae38ca87ab227ed25d7f62a7c1a333b 100644
--- a/roles/kubernetes/node/templates/kubelet.j2
+++ b/roles/kubernetes/node/templates/kubelet.j2
@@ -13,7 +13,10 @@ KUBELET_HOSTNAME="--hostname-override={{ ansible_hostname }}"
 --pod-infra-container-image={{ pod_infra_image_repo }}:{{ pod_infra_image_tag }} \
 --kube-reserved cpu={{ kubelet_cpu_limit }},memory={{ kubelet_memory_limit|regex_replace('Mi', 'M') }} \
 --node-status-update-frequency={{ kubelet_status_update_frequency }} \
-{% if kube_version | version_compare('v1.7', '>=') %}
+{% if kube_version | version_compare('v1.6', '>=') %}
+{# flag got removed with 1.7.0 #}
+{% if kube_version | version_compare('v1.7', '<') %}
+--enable-cri={{ kubelet_enable_cri }} {% endif %}
 --enable-cri={{ kubelet_enable_cri }} --cgroups-per-qos={{ kubelet_cgroups_per_qos }} \
 --enforce-node-allocatable='{{ kubelet_enforce_node_allocatable }}' {% endif %}{% endset %}