FILE PHOTO: Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 28, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland would not block a British request to delay its exit from the European Union, but it would be up to the union as a whole to decide, Ireland’s Foreign Minister said on Tuesday.

“If it is the case that at some point in the future that the British government seeks an extension of article 50, then that is something that will have to get consideration at an EU level,” Simon Coveney told journalists after a meeting with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Dublin.

“But certainly from an Irish perspective, if such an ask happens, we won’t be standing in the way on that.”