Syrian president launches astonishing attack on the 'arsonist' British government and issues dire warning against arming rebels Assad slammed 'arsonist' government for pushing to end EU arms embargo He said there would be 'grave' consequences if the West armed rebels He also accused Britain of attempting to 'militarise the problem' In a rare interview with western media, Assad said that the UK is 'naive' in its approach William Hague today dismissed Assad's criticism as 'delusional' Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has launched an astonishing attack on Britain, accusing the 'arsonist' government of being 'naive, confused and unrealistic' in its approach to the ongoing conflict in his country. He went on to warn of 'grave' consequences if the West armed its rebels. Assad said that Britain has been unconstructive in its attempts to militarise the rebels In an interview with the Sunday Times he 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.' Scroll down for video of the interview Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks during an interview with the Sunday Times. He attacked the 'arsonist' British government and issued a dire warning against arming rebels He added: 'How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role when 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 and don't try to ease the dialogue between the Syrian (s). Assad warned that if the West made moves that ended up with rebels being armed, there would grave consequences. Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East 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. Foreign secretary William Hague branded Assad 'delusional' on The Andrew Marr Show after the Syrian president spoke out against Britain's actions to push for an end to an EU arms embargo Today, foreign secretary William Hague dismissed Assad's criticism of Britain as 'delusional' and said Britain could not afford just to 'sit on the sidelines' and watch the slaughter continue in Syria. Speaking on BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show, Hague refused to rule out the prospect that Britain could arm the Syrian rebels, despite Assad's warning. The longer this goes on the greater the danger that extremism takes hold, the greater the danger of destabilising neighbouring countries, and the greater the extreme humanitarian distress involved. So we cannot just sit on the sidelines and watch this. We will be doing more and we will have to steadily do more if there is no diplomatic or political breakthrough. The situation in Syria now is too dangerous to the peace and security of that entire region and thereby to the world to ignore it. Hague, who is set to announce further non-lethal assistance to the rebels later this week, said that the UK would continue to step up support for the opposition as long as there was no diplomatic or political breakthrough in the two-year long conflict. 'I don't rule anything out for the future,' he said. If this is going to go on for months or years and more tens of thousands of people are going to die and countries like Iraq and Lebanon and Jordan are going to be destabilised it is not something we can ignore. 'These are the reasons why we can't just sit it out in Syria.' Members of the Free Syrian Army inspect the wreckage of a helicopter, belonging to forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, near Menagh military airport Members of the Martyr Abdallah Al Kaakeh battalion head to the front line in their conflict with forces loyal to the Syrian president, in Aleppo's Salaheddine district The Syrian president said: 'We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms.'