Bashar al-Assad accuses UK of being 'naive' in approach to Syria and warns of dire consequences if west arms rebels

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has accused the British government of being "naive, confused and unrealistic" in its approach to the conflict in his country and warned of dire consequences if the west armed its rebels.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Assad said Britain was sacrificing peace talks to push for an end to an EU arms embargo, which would allow rebels to be armed.

Warning this would accelerate the road to war, he rejected the possibility of help from Britain to end the conflict, saying: "We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter."

"To be frank, Britain has played a famously unconstructive role in our region on different issues for decades, some say for centuries … The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlights this tradition of bullying and hegemony.

"How can we ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarise the problem? How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supply to the terrorists?"

But Assad also indicated he was ready to hold peace talks with Syrian rebels to bring to an end a conflict that has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives over the past two years.

He said: "We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms. We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorise people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprise and to destroy the country."

He added: "We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition, but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists. We fight terrorism."

On Thursday, the foreign secretary, William Hague, promised to increase support for the Syrian opposition, including equipment supplies and humanitarian assistance, as the US secretary of state, John Kerry, announced £39m in funding for rebel forces.

Assad said Hague was misguided in his offer of assistance to rebels, saying: "The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria.

"We all know that we are now fighting al-Qaida, or Jabhat al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaida, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies."

He told the Sunday Times the British government was also misreading the public feeling in its own country, saying: "A recent survey in the UK showed that a good proportion of the British people want to 'keep out of Syria' and they do not believe that the British government should send military supplies to the rebels.

"In spite of this, the British government continues to push the EU to lift its arms embargo on Syria and to start arming the militants with heavy weapons.

"That is what I call detached reality – when you're detached from your own public opinion."

Assad warned that if the west made moves that ended up with rebels being armed, there would be grave consequences.

"Syria lies at the faultline geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So playing with this faultline will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East," he said.

"Any intervention will not make these things better. It will only make them worse. Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region. They do not foresee it."