DUBLIN: Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney on Wednesday warned that it was difficult to envisage a landing zone for agreement on fisheries, a key stumbling block in trade talks between Britain and the European Union.

The current British position "creates a very difficult negotiation and a landing zone that is quite hard to envisage, quite frankly, for now", Coveney told a parliamentary committee.

"This is a big obstacle and I don't think the British government should underestimate the strength of feeling on fishing of many of the Atlantic member states," he said.