The United States and its European allies will also tell Iran that it must stop refining uranium to a concentration of 20 per cent - a level considered a short step away from weapons grade - and move existing stocks of fuel already enriched to such levels abroad.
The demands signal a Western acceptance of the most important conditions that Israel says must be fulfilled if it is to be persuaded to drop its threat of unilateral military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Barack Obama has warned Iran that the talks, which begin on Friday, represent its "last chance" for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.
Iranian media said the talks, which collapsed more than a year ago, would be held in Istanbul, apparently dropping a push by Tehran to stage the talks in a new venue.
In a significant softening of its position, the Iranian government dropped its opposition to the negotiations being held in Istanbul. Officials in Tehran had previously called for the talks to be held in Iraq or even conflict-ravaged Syria in a tactic seen as a time-wasting ruse.
According to Western diplomats quoted by the New York Times, Iran will be told it must seal and ultimately dismantle its Fordow uranium enrichment plant, buried deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom, as a sign of its sincerity.
Iran has begun enriching uranium to 20 per cent at Fordow and is moving much of its nuclear fuel to the plant in a step that has caused deep concern in Israel, whose US-provided "bunker-busting" bombs would probably not be able to destroy the facility.
Iran has already enriched 240 lb of uranium to 20 per cent according to UN inspectors, a little less than the material needed to supply one nuclear bomb if it is refined further. Iran says it plans to triple its stocks of the higher-grade fuel, saying it needs them to supply a research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.
The Israeli government has demanded a halt to all Iranian enrichment, including to lower levels of 3.5 per cent, but has agreed to allow its Western allies to adopt a "staggered approach" by concentrating first on Tehran's higher-grade fuel.
"We told our American friends, as well as the Europeans, that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiations to be clear, namely that [they] will demand clearly that no more enrichment to 20 per cent," Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister.
The Telegraph
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