Maintaining same regulations best way to avoid hard border: Irish PM

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The best way to avoid the return of a "hard" border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland after Britain quits the European Union is to continue to apply the same regulations on both sides, Ireland's prime minister said on Friday. "There is no demand from the Irish government that any part of the United Kingdom should remain in the (EU) customs union, what we want though is the language that we've all agreed to (on avoiding a hard border) to be turned into reality," Leo Varadkar told a news conference after a meeting of the British Irish Council in the English Channel island of Jersey. "We believe that can be best achieved by continuing to apply the same sort of rules and regulations." (Reporting by Padraic Halpin, editing by Larry King)