“We will not travel to Suleymaniyah and Erbil in accordance with the decision taken by the civil aviation authority of the Iraq central government,” the premier said in Canakkale in northwestern Turkey.

“Our measures are not limited to this,” he added, vowing to take more step by step in response to the vote on independence by the Iraqi Kurdish region on Monday despite vehement opposition from Turkey and other countries.

He offered to send private planes to pick up Turkish citizens stranded in the two cities in the Iraqi Kurdish region.

Ankara has threatened economic sanctions and a military response to punish the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq for pressing ahead with the referendum, in which 92.73 percent of the voters voiced support for the independence bid.

Turkey responded on Tuesday by barring the Iraq Kurdish region’s representative from returning on top of suspending three Iraqi Kurdish TV channels.

As a country with a large Kurdish population, Turkey fears that the move by Iraqi Kurds may fuel separatism at home, as Ankara has been fighting against a Kurdish insurgency for more than 30 years.

Iran and other regional countries have come up with their own countermeasures against the Iraqi Kurdish region.