The US needs to stop treating Iran as if it is governed by "mad mullahs" and engage in dialogue with the Islamic Republic, which is emerging "stronger but different" from the US-Israeli war, a senior Iraqi Kurdish official said on Thursday.
"Iranians are often misunderstood in the West. This notion of mad mullahs is far from the truth," Bafel Talabani said at a Strategic Forum in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Sulaymaniyah.
"We don't find it difficult talking to the Iranians," he said. "As an ally of Mr Trump and, strangely, an ally of the Iranians [I say] the mighty US can do it," he added.
Bafel Talabani in Tehran, Iran, on 16 September 2026. Zuma Press Wire via ReutersTalabani leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which is the dominant political party in southeastern Iraqi Kurdistan. The PUK's administrative zone accounts for most of the region's long border with Iran.
The PUK has historically enjoyed close ties to Tehran, but that relationship came under strain earlier this year after US President Donald Trump and his advisers tried to recruit Talabani and other Kurdish leaders to support a Kurdish insurgency in Iran.
Talabani eventually decided not to intervene. A senior Kurdish official in Sulaym
