WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The United States has reiterated its call for Turkey not to take cross-border military action against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, the State Department said Monday.

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's Kurdish region, on Sunday, urging Turkey to show restraint, and Iraq to take action against the outlawed PKK, the department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

    "We do not believe unilateral cross-border operations are the best way to address this issue," McCormack said.

    Stressing that the U.S. regards the PKK as a terrorist organization, the spokesman said the best way "is for the Turks and the Iraqis to work together to mitigate it and eliminate it."

    "We are going to do everything we can to encourage Turkey and Iraq to work together to address what is a common threat," he noted.

    Also on Monday, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that Iraq should take quick action to stop Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq from mounting further cross-border attacks into Turkey.

    "We do not want to see wider military action on the northern border," Fratto told a news briefing.

    Turkey has vowed to take all necessary measures against the Kurdish rebels, including a possible incursion into northern Iraq after dozens of Turkish soldiers were recently killed by PKK militants.

    The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.