German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, Germany, March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Ireland on Thursday for talks with her Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar on Brexit, a German government spokeswoman said on Friday.

Ireland, the only country to share a land border with Britain, has come to play a central role in discussions over Britain’s departure from the European Union, when the border with the province of Northern Ireland will become the bloc’s external frontier.