"The situation is different in Yemen and cannot be compared to Afghanistan," Kurbi told reporters during his visit to Doha.
"Certainly there is a problem with Al-Qaeda and an interest among the international community in its activities" in the Arabian Peninsula country, the minister said.
"Yemen is capable of confronting these groups, but it needs international aid to form and train anti-terrorist units as well as economic aid, since the problem also has an economic dimension."
At the weekend, Washington and London announced plans to help Yemen reinforce its anti-terrorist capabilities, after a local Al-Qaeda offshoot was linked to a botched Christmas attack on a US airliner.
Threats of attacks by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, have since forced the closure of the embassies of the United States, Britain and France in the Yemeni capital.
On the subject of the Shiite rebellion in northern Yemen, Kurbi ruled out the resumption of Qatari mediation, saying the insurgents had to respect the government's conditions to reach a peace deal.
"We are asking the rebels not to announce that they are ready to accept these conditions but to implement them. The government will then be ready to listen to their grievances," the minister said.
The conditions laid down by Sanaa for a return to peace include the cessation of hostilities, withdrawing from official buildings and respecting the law.
The rebels said on Saturday they were ready for talks with the government and to accept its conditions if Sanaa declares a "definitive" end to to the military offensive it launched on August 11.
Qatari mediators abandoned their efforts to broker a peace deal in August 2007, with Yemeni officials at the time accusing the rebels of foot-dragging in implementing the peace proposals.
Yemen's Shiite or Zaidi uprising first broke out in 2004 in the mountainous Saada province near the border with Saudi Arabia.
