Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that any talks over its nuclear program must be in a fair atmosphere and threats would not work.

A woman attends a religious ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Iran's Late Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, while standing under a huge portrait of Khomeini in Tehran, June 4, 2006. [Reuters]

"Negotiations should take place in a fair atmosphere. If they (the international community) think they can threaten and hang a stick over the head of the Iranian nation and negotiate at the same time, they should know the Iranian nation will reject such an atmosphere," he said in a televised speech.

He also said Iran would not negotiate over its "certain rights." Ahmadinejad did not mention uranium enrichment, but Iranian officials have previously said enrichment, which the West wants Iran to stop, is a national right.