"I'm very glad that both governments of Iran and the United States have stated that the negotiations that recently took place in Istanbul on the issue of nuclear energy have been successful," Ebadi told the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago.

However, Ebadi said, she objects to any efforts to "shake the hand of friendship with a government that for the past 30 years has been fighting human rights."

The Iranian government "neither likes peace with its own people nor is interested in listening to what the people have to say," Ebadi said through a translator.

"In any negotiations with the government of Iran, democracy and human rights should be the subject of negotiations."

The peace and democracy movement in Iran is very strong despite recent crackdowns, Ebadi said.

Iran's feminism movement is the largest in the Middle East, she added, because of high educational level among Iranian women and because so many Iranian men understand that true reform will come only when women's rights are guaranteed.

"If women succeed in attaining equal rights in Iran, the male power of religion will be cracked," Ebadi said.

"This is the gate to democracy and an introduction to changing bad laws like stoning and cutting off hands of thieves."

Despite what some clerics say, there is no contradiction between Islam and a respect for human rights, nor is there any reason to adopt so-called 'Islamic feminism', Ebadi said.

"We can be Muslims and -- with a correct interpretation of Islam -- attain equal rights for women."

Iran is not the only nation using religion to justify repressing women, said Suzanne Nossel, director of Amnesty International in the United States.

Women's reproductive rights are currently under attack in the United States as politicians seek to limit access to contraception with the argument that employers who object on moral grounds should not have to provide such health insurance coverage.

"We really need to avoid pitting women's rights against religious freedom and also to prevent the resurgence of an argument that religious practice must override women's rights," Nossel told the summit.

Reproductive freedom has allowed women to control their lives and advance professionally. Rolling those rights back is "an economic threat to this country and something we need to make very clear," Nossel added.

His remarks appeared aimed at stepping up pressure on Iran as it engages in revived international nuclear negotiations amid increased speculation in recent months that Israel may soon take military action to halt its nuclear drive.

"They have to stop all enrichment," Netanyahu told CNN in an interview in Jerusalem, adding that he would not accept Iran enriching uranium to even three percent, which is near the level required for peaceful atomic energy.

"After you stop all enrichment... you will get these (fuel) rods from another country that can allow you to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes," he said.

Netanyahu said Iran must also "dismantle the underground bunker," apparently referring to the Fordo site near the holy city of Qom, where UN inspectors say it has begun enriching uranium to 20-percent purity.

When asked if he worried that his language might commit Israel to launching a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, Netanyahu replied: "I'm not worried what we look like. I'm worried about stopping this."

Iran has already developed the capacity to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent, the level required for atomic energy, and to 20 percent, which is used to create medical isotopes.

It would have to enrich to 90 percent in order to make nuclear weapons.

Israel has long seen Iran as the greatest threat to its survival, both because of Tehran's nuclear program and because of its leaders' calls for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.

Tehran has insisted its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has claimed the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

An Iranian envoy is scheduled to meet with representatives of the P+5 group, which includes the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany, in Baghdad on May 23 for fresh talks aimed at resolving the nuclear impasse.

US and EU diplomats are reportedly planning to demand that Iran close and dismantle the Fordo site, stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and ship existing stockpiles out of the country, demands already rejected by Tehran.

Iran and the P5+1 met in Istanbul on April 14 for the first time in 15 months.

The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran over suspicions that its avowed civilian nuclear program is a cover for a secret atomic weapons drive, a charge vigorously denied by Tehran.