TEHRAN – Abbas Araqhi, the deputy foreign minister and a senior member of the nuclear negotiating team, said on Monday that the process of implementing the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has nearly begun.

Under the nuclear deal, Iran will slow down its nuclear activities for a decade and instead the sanctions against the country are removed.

“Based on the timetable, we assume that we will reach a point nearly within the next two months that the JCPOA will become fully operational,” IRNA quoted Araqchi as saying.

He added that the other side is also expected to honor its commitments to terminate the sanctions.

Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi, who had visited Tokyo for talks on nuclear safety with Japanese officials, said on Monday that Iran has begun decommissioning uranium enrichment centrifuges under the terms of the nuclear deal.

“We have started the preliminary work” on implementing the agreement, Salehi was quoted as saying by Japan's Kyodo news agency.

He added that the measures include reducing the number of active centrifuge machines.