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MOSCOW, Oct 13 (Reuters) - U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Saturday she had urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq in conversations with three top Turkish officials

"I urged restraint," Rice, on a visit to Moscow, told reporters of her telephone conversations on Friday with Turkey's president, prime minister and foreign minister.

Ankara says it is preparing for a military incursion in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels using the mountains there as a base for attacks inside Turkey, where they seek an independent Kurdish state. Washington fears such an action could cause chaos in an area of Iraq that remains relatively peaceful.

Rice said she told the Turkish officials "that we all have an interest in a stable Iraq and that anything that is destabilising is going to be to the detriment of both of our interests."

Rice acknowledged strains in the U.S.-Turkish relations following the vote by a U.S. Congressional committee branding as genocide massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

"It is a tough time," she told reporters. "It's not an easy time for the relationship and it was perfectly predictable."

She said the Bush administration would continue to try to prevent the resolution being approved by the full U.S. Congress.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried and Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman flew to Turkey on Saturday.

Rice said the visit by the two was designed to minimise the impact of the congressional committee vote on U.S.-Turkish relations.

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