It's Tuesday, welcome to ever click the end,

or more than the world's

It's a Thursday, the 17th of February.

Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin.

I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage.

All right, let's get briefed.

First up, U.S.-Iran nuclear talks wrap up in just a matter of hours, raising doubts about real progress.

As Iran stages live fire drills in the Strait of Hormuz. I'll bring you the details.

Later in the show, Israel delivers an

ultimatum to Hamas. Surrender your weapons or prepare for another round of fighting. But first,

today's afternoon spotlight. Talks between U.S. and Iran and Geneva concluded quickly today,

so quickly that many analysts are questioning whether anything meaningful was actually negotiated.

Okay, well, my voters, no, nothing meaningful was actually negotiated, but I'm just speculating there.

The second round of indirect nuclear talks wrapped up after roughly four hours, leaving diplomats and experts on both sides,

scratching their heads for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, a disputeats and experts on both sides scratching their heads for negotiations

over Iran's nuclear program, a dispute that has dragged on for years and took two and a half

years to resolve in 2015. Well, four hours is a blink of an eye, of course. That brief session

fueled skepticism that any actual progress was made and reinforced the sense that the fundamental

differences between Washington and Tehran remain, for the time being, at least, irreconcilable.

However, because it's diplomacy and diplomats always speak in hopeful terms even when they know

it's crap, the messaging, at least, from one side,

isn't all negative. There are some faint signs of cautious optimism emerging from Geneva. Again,

...