There were extra spaces or space with a different font, in front of “” that got copied over from an editor.  Once replaced, everything worked fine:

root@g73sw01:/etc# klist -kte
klist: Improper format of Kerberos configuration file while initializing krb5
root@g73sw01:/etc# vi /etc/krb5.conf
root@g73sw01:/etc# klist -kte
Keytab name: FILE:/etc/krb5.keytab
KVNO Timestamp Principal
—- ——————- ——————————————————
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96)
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96)
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (aes256-cts-hmac-sha384-192)
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (aes128-cts-hmac-sha256-128)
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (DEPRECATED:des3-cbc-sha1)
6 11/19/2023 22:34:44 host/g73sw01.nix.mds.xyz@NIX.MDS.XYZ (DEPRECATED:arcfour-hmac)
root@g73sw01:/etc# cat /etc/krb5.conf
.
.
.
.mds.xyz = MDS.XYZ
mds.xyz = MDS.XYZ
root@g73sw01:/etc#