Northern Ireland protocol not a territorial threat to UK, Ireland says

FILE PHOTO: Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Coveney speaks at the launch of his party's manifesto for the Irish General Election in Dublin

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland are not a threat to the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom but simply a means of managing disruption from its exit from the European Union, Ireland's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"Don't know how many times this needs to be said before it's fully accepted as true. NI (Northern Ireland) Protocol is a technical trading arrangement to manage the disruption of Brexit for the island of Ireland to the greatest extent possible," Simon Coveney said on Twitter.

"It's not about constitutional matters," he said in response to comments by Britain's Brexit minister David Frost at a parliamentary committee.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Catherine Evans)