A senior Iraqi officials has denied reports that Iranian troops had crossed into Iraqi territory and briefly occupied a remote oilfield area.
Security sources in southeastern Maysan province, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iranian troops made their way onto the Fakka oilfield area, on the Iraqi side of the border, then withdrew after several hours.
Iraq's deputy interior minister, Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji, says no incursion took place.
"This news in not true. This field is disputed and now it is neglected by both sides," he said.
"There was no storming of the field. It's empty. It's abandoned. It is exactly on the border between Iraq and Iran."
According to Arabic-language television reports, Iranian troops entered the Iraqi field and raised an Iranian flag.
Ties between Iran and Iraq, which fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, have improved since a Shi'ite-led government took over in Baghdad following the ousting of Sunni Arab leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Yet tensions have flared in the past in the inhospitable desert region, just one of many flashpoints where continuing disagreement over shared borders between the majority Shi'ite Muslim neighbours has fuelled a low-level public feud.
With Washington and Tehran at odds over Iran's nuclear program, the Iran-Iraq relationship is more delicate given the presence of 115,000 US soldiers on Iraqi soil.
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