CARBIS BAY, England, June 13 (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab criticised the European Union on Sunday for treating Northern Ireland as if it was a separate country rather than part of the United Kingdom, and that approach was causing damage to the British province.

"Various EU figures here in Carbis Bay, but frankly for months now and years, have characterised Northern Ireland as somehow a separate country and that is wrong. It is a failure to understand the facts," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Elizabeth Piper)