Tehran, Iran — Even as denunciations of the nuclear deal still echo in the US and Iran, the mid-July breakthrough already appears to have quietly enabled the first steps in academic diplomacy between the two countries.

This week, five American students began a two-year masters program in Iranian studies at Tehran University – where US citizens were denied visas for years – and three more Americans have enrolled in separate Persian language programs.

President Hassan Rouhani, who promised Iranian voters sanctions relief and for whom the nuclear deal was a central achievement, has often spoken of Iran's need to engage with the West. Last week Mr. Rouhani said the deal marked not the "end of the road," but the start of better ties "with different countries."

But the anti-American rhetoric hasn't changed at the very top. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned this month that the "enemy" effort to exert political and cultural influence "is a much larger danger" than security threats and that the "complete symbol" of that enemy was the United States.

Besides the American students, five British nationals and one Canadian were also accepted for the masters program at Tehran University.

"This really is a breakthrough," says Mahdi Ahouie, head of the Department of Iranian Studies, which under the Faculty of World Studies runs the foreign student program.

"It seems to us this has changed, as part of Mr. Rouhani's policy to open the country to academic exchange," says Professor Ahouie. "We don't know if it is because of the nuclear deal, but something has happened."