ISTANBUL — In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor on the afternoon of July 21, veteran US diplomat James Dobbins spoke about whether — and where — Iran and the United States can work together on regional issues. Ambassador Dobbins was the US point man in one of the most successful instances of Iranian-American cooperation in the 21st century. At the 2001 Bonn Conference, he worked closely with current Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other major players to lay the foundations of a new Afghan government after the overthrow of the Taliban.

An edited transcript follows below:

Al-Monitor:  Where do grounds today exist for regional cooperation between Iran and the United States?

Dobbins:  Clearly, it is easiest with respect to Afghanistan, where US and Iranian interests are largely aligned … and where they’ve pursued comparable policies for the past 12 years, with a certain degree of actual coordination on occasion, and certainly a lot of parallelism and some intercommunication. So, moving from parallel policies to actual collaboration is not a big leap. It won’t be unpopular in Afghanistan. And it shouldn’t be that controversial in Tehran or Washington.