ADEN: Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi threatened on Sunday to boycott the peace talks with rebels if the United Nations envoy insists on a roadmap stipulating a unity government that includes the insurgents. UN-sponsored talks between Hadi’s government and the Huthi rebels and their allies are scheduled to resume on Friday in Kuwait after a two-week break. More than two months of negotiations have failed to make headway to end the deadly conflict. “We will not return to the talks in Kuwait if the UN tries to impose the latest proposal by the mediator Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed,” Hadi said during a visit to inspect troops in Marib province, east of the rebel-held capital. Cheikh has put forward a peace roadmap that would see the formation of a unity government and the withdrawal and disarmament of the rebels. He said that the negotiators had welcomed his proposal but had not agreed on a timetable or the steps needed for its implementation. The government had already expressed doubts this month about the UN-backed efforts. Hadi’s government wants to re-establish its authority across the entire country, much of which is rebel-controlled, and restart a political transition that was interrupted when the Huthis seized Sana’a in 2014. The rebels have conditioned their withdrawal on both sides agreeing on a new president to manage the transition. In his speech, published on the official sabanew.net website, Hadi insisted that the rebels were using the Kuwait talks to “legitimise their coup d’etat”, and rejected the UN proposal for a unity government. “The UN has tried to convince us to form a coalition government. We said we would issue a statement declaring our boycott of the Kuwait consultations,” Hadi added. In February last year, the Huthis dissolved the government and the parliament, and formed their own Supreme Revolutionary Committee to rule Yemen. Cheikh has urged both sides to make concessions to end the conflict, which has cost more than 6,400 lives since March 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to push back the rebels.