“America’s illegal and adventurist acts should stop in Iraq,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucheher Mottaki told his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari in a telephone conversation, the agency said.

“These acts contradict the Vienna Convention (on diplomatic relations) and they are an obvious intervention in the brotherly relations between the two countries,” he added.

“Considering the Iraqi government’s responsibilty in this matter, we demand that (they) seriously seek to release the Iranian consulate members in Arbil.”

Six Iranians were arrested in a night-time swoop by US forces on an office in the northern Iraq city of Arbil Thursday, one of whom has since been released.

The United States has said the men had links to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and none of them held diplomatic passports. Iran however insists the men were diplomats working for a consulate in the city.

The ambassadors of Iraq and Switzerland, which represents US interests in Tehran in the absence of a US embassy, were summoned in the aftermath of the incident, according to the IRNA report.

The raid came after a warning by US President George W. Bush that the United States would crack down on alleged Iranian meddling in Iraq, where US commanders accuse Tehran of arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks.

Tehran vehemently denies the charges.