RAFAH, Egypt: Delegations from Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah party and the Islamist Hamas movement that controls Gaza arrived in Egypt yesterday for a new round of unity talks, a security official said. The delegations entered Egypt through the divided town of Rafah, which straddles the border with Gaza.

The Hamas delegation is headed by former Foreign Minister Mahmud Zahar and the Fatah delegation by Zakaria Al-Agha, the official said. The two groups, which have been bitterly divided since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, are due to kick off their latest round of talks in Cairo today.

A self-described optimist, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the US Congress on Thursday there is no workable alternative to a two-state solution to the long and bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and both sides are in favor of it.

But in practice, “they doubt it can happen,” Blair told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“The opportunity is there,” said Blair, who is the international negotiator for the Mideast on behalf of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia. “But it won’t remain if not seized. As President Obama has recognized, this is the right time to seize it.”

The best way to go, he said, is to try to make it clear to the Palestinians that negotiations will result in genuine statehood and to the Israelis that there can be “an agreed program for reform of the Palestinian security sector.”

Meanwhile, Jordan’s king has praised the renewed US commitment to achieving peace in the Middle East and urged Israel to work toward that goal. King Abdallah spoke in Amman a day after he pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hopes Netanyahu will heed calls to endorse a two-state solution. “I hope the king’s words will not fall on deaf ears,” Erekat said.

Later, US Sen. John Kerry told a panel discussion he believed the “window of opportunity for the two-state solution is closing.” “It’s closing for a number of reasons - crushed aspirations, demographics, realities on the ground,” said the Massachusetts Democrat; chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.