diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index aa48a567d2..d0a61ebc4d 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 	#3457: alsamixergui: broken URL
 	#3475: Calling sync on large filesystems when not always necessary
 	#3511: make busybox-menuconfig does not download busybox package
+	#3541: Quotes in the top Makefile:217 break buildroot/kernel config...
 
 2011.02, Released February 28th, 2011:
 
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2e698cc18c..02a5c366ad 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -214,7 +214,7 @@ ifneq ($(findstring cygwin,$(GNU_HOST_NAME)),)
 HOST_EXEEXT:=.exe
 HOST_LIBEXT:=.lib
 HOST_SHREXT:=.dll
-HOST_LOADLIBES="-lcurses -lintl"
+HOST_LOADLIBES=-lcurses -lintl
 export HOST_LOADLIBES
 endif
 ifneq ($(findstring mingw,$(GNU_HOST_NAME)),)