CAIRO (AP) — The Yemeni government is not negotiating with Shiite rebels who captured the capital, Sanaa, last September, Foreign Minister Riad Yassin said Thursday.

The rebels, known as Houthis, and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh must lay down their arms and give the government full control over all of Yemen, as required by the United Nations, he said.

“The Houthis and Saleh’s militias must implement the U.N. resolution and surrender their weapons, and only then the dialogue and political process can begin, with the participation of all Yemeni parties,” Yassin told reporters in Cairo after meeting with Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby.

Referring to reports of envoys meetings in the Gulf nation of Oman, Yassin described them as mere “consultations” between U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed and the Houthis, aimed at convincing them to implement a U.N. resolution from April. That resolution requested the Houthis withdraw from areas they seized and surrender weapons they took from the military and state institutions.