Pro-EU demostrators wave flags and placards outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on Tuesday. Isabel Infantes / AFP

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday she will ask the European Union for an extension to the Brexit negotiation period and will sit down with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to break the impasse in parliament.

"So we will need a further extension of Article 50, one that is as short as possible and which ends when we pass a deal. And we need to be clear what such an extension is for, to ensure we leave in a timely and orderly way," May said in a televised statement from her office in Downing Street.

"Today I am taking action to break the logjam. I am offering to sit down with the leader of the opposition and to try to agree a plan that we would both stick to ensure that we leave the European Union and that we do so with a deal."

European Union leaders should be patient with Britain over the country's struggle to find majority support for a deal to exit the EU, the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

Tusk was reacting to a speech by Prime Minister Theresa May that she would ask the EU for an extension to the Brexit negotiation period and will sit down with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to break the impasse in parliament.

"Even if, after today, we don’t know what the end result will be, let us be patient," Tusk said on Twitter.

Agencies