Yemeni Deputy Foreign Minister says there has been no direct or indirect negotiations with the Houthis, Al ArabyTV reports

Statements denying contact with the Houthis matter chiefly for what they say about the Red Sea shipping file, since any genuine de-escalation of attacks on commercial traffic has historically run through some form of indirect channel, typically Omani or Saudi mediation, rather than direct talks. A flat denial of even indirect engagement therefore reads as a signal that no negotiated off-ramp is currently active, which in past episodes has kept the risk premia embedded in freight rates, war-risk insurance and tanker routing around the Cape of Good Hope in place rather than being unwound. The distinction worth drawing is between rhetorical denial and operational reality: back-channels in this conflict have frequently existed while being publicly disavowed, so the tell is not the statement itself but whether attack tempo, naval task force activity and insurance pricing corroborate a frozen track. Prior form from the actors involved is that public positioning on negotiations tends to harden around moments of military or diplomatic pressure. The follow-ons are any shift in Houthi attack cadence, movement in Suez transit volumes, and whether mediators in the region contradict the denial. As a single-sourced denial carried by one broadcaster, the informational weight is modest until confirmed or refuted elsewhere.