Iran has been violating Iraq's borders since 2006, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments aired on Saturday, a week after Iranian troops took over an oil well in disputed territory.

"Violations by the Iranians started in 2006," Zebari told MPs in the statement broadcast by the state-funded Al-Iraqiya television channel.

"Technicians used to go to the wells and Iranians annoyed them, opened fire on them, arrested them," he said.

"We have a large number of issues with Iran dating back to 2003, many of them a result of the Iraq-Iran war, such as borders, water, mine fields... The biggest file in the ministry of foreign affairs is the Iran file."

On December 18, Iraq's state-owned South Oil Co. said about a dozen Iranian troops and technicians had arrived at the field, taken control of the Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag. They eventually withdrew days later.

The takeover was one of the most serious incidents between the two neighbours since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, which fought a devastating 1980-1988 war against Iran.

Many leaders of Shiite parties who were exiled in Iran during the Saddam era are now in power in Baghdad. The two countries share a 1,458-kilometre (910-mile) border.