Jerusalem ? Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday he was ready to negotiate with the new Palestinian prime minister at any time, but U.S. officials took a tougher stance, saying the Palestinians first must dismantle terror organizations.

Israel previously indicated it would not talk with the new Palestinian government led by Ahmed Qureia because that Cabinet was too closely associated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Sharon, speaking at an economic forum in Tel Aviv, said the absence of a top-level dialogue between the two sides was due to Palestinian reluctance.

“The reason we don’t have prime ministerial level contacts stems from the fact that Palestinians have requested time to allow the designated Palestinian prime minister to establish himself,” Sharon said.

“We are ready to enter negotiations at any time.”

Qureia leads an emergency Cabinet appointed by Arafat with a one-month mandate that expires Tuesday. Arafat has asked Qureia to form a full Cabinet by then, but Qureia has been unable to do so, partly because of serious disagreements with Arafat.

Israel and the United States are boycotting Arafat, charging that he is involved in Palestinian terrorism. The absence of a stable Palestinian Cabinet has stopped talks over the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan, which calls for an end to violence and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

On Thursday in New York, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the road map was “a fact of political life.”

“It is the most reliable guide to achieving the objective of two states living side by side,” she said at the U.S. government’s foreign press center.

For the plan to work, Rice said, the new Palestinian government needs to ensure that “terrorism is being fought, terrorist infrastructures are being dismantled and the Palestinian leadership has control of its security forces.”

Reflecting Washington’s frustration, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz — the Pentagon’s No. 2 official — praised an alternative peace plan drawn up by a prominent Palestinian moderate and the former head of Israel’s secret service.

Israeli Adm. Ami Ayalon and Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh claim to have collected 100,000 Israeli and 60,000 Palestinian signatures in three months.

Their petition calls for Israel to withdraw to the borders it had before the 1967 war, when it captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The document calls for a demilitarized Palestinian state in those territories.