How do Java interfaces translate to Python?

[Gordon Tyler]

Hi,

I'm primarily a Java programmer but I dabble in Python on a regular basis.
My current project is a low- and high-level interface to IRC which can be
re-used to write IRC clients and bots.

My question is this: Java being my primary language, I'm very used to
using interfaces and I was wondering if there was an equivalent construct
or idiom in Python? How does one do in Python what one would do with
interfaces in Java?

Thanks,
Gordon