The Daily Populous Tuesday February 17th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by scmp.com and submitted by ShadowNelumbo

Iran fired live missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz while its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the US warship deployed in the Gulf could be sunk, amid nuclear talks between the two countries.

“We constantly hear that they [the US] have sent a warship towards Iran. A warship is certainly a dangerous weapon, but even more dangerous is the weapon capable of sinking it,” Khamenei said in a speech on Tuesday.

The US and Iran held their second round of talks about Iran’s nuclear programme on Tuesday in Geneva as Washington ramps up its military presence in the Middle East and Tehran holds large-scale maritime exercises.

Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner flew to Geneva to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

After the talks, which ran for about three hours, Araghchi said both countries agreed on “a set of guiding principles” that would pave the way for a deal.

Demonstrators take part in a march in support of the people of Iran by members of the American-Iranian community in Los Angeles on Saturday. Photo: AFP

“Ultimately, we were able to reach broad agreement on a set of guiding principles, based on which we will move forward and begin working on the text of a potential agreement,” Araghchi told state TV after the talks in Geneva, which he described as “more constructive” than the previous round earlier this month.

ValWillKay on February 17th, 2026 at 12:59 UTC »

Iran always aggressively postures with statements like this, even when it loses

pisteoffpvalue on February 17th, 2026 at 11:55 UTC »

All their saber rattling doesn’t matter much since Israel showed a few F-35s can cripple their entire military.

EnvironmentalCan381 on February 17th, 2026 at 11:52 UTC »

Bad move