In an unprecedented -- but eventually unrealized -- diplomatic initiative to achieve peace in the Middle East, Japan considered brokering a summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jordan next month, government sources said Saturday.

The sources said the idea of brokering the peace summit emerged when the government was preparing for a visit to Egypt by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to attend a ceremony commemorating the completion of a Japanese-funded bridge across the Suez Canal.

When Seiken Sugiura, senior vice foreign minister, met with Koizumi in August after a tour of the Middle East and suggested the prime minister attend the ceremony in Egypt, scheduled for Oct. 9, Koizumi made a positive reply, the sources said.

But Koizumi eventually decided not to make the trip to concentrate on his economic reform agenda and Japan's support for the United States in its war against terrorism, following attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

Economic reform and support for the war on terrorism by the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush are to dominate an extraordinary Diet session that opened on Thursday.

Under the Japanese peace initiative for the Middle East, Koizumi would have flown to Jordan after visiting Egypt and attended an Israeli-Palestinian summit presided over by Jordanian King Abdullah, the sources said.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab nations that have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

The sources said a Japanese-funded bridge over the River Jordan, instead of a hotel or a government building in the Jordanian capital, Amman, was considered as a possible venue for the summit. It was not clear whether the bridge being considered was the Sheik Hussein Bridge or the King Hussein Bridge.

The Sheik Hussein Bridge, which links Jordan and Israel, was destroyed in the first Middle East War in 1948. Following the 1994 peace agreement between the two countries, Japan provided 771 million yen in grant-in-aid for reconstruction of the bridge in 1996. It reopened in August 1999.

The King Hussein Bridge, which is also known as the Allenby Bridge, links Jordan and the West Bank. Japan provided 1.215 billion yen in grant-in-aid in January 2000 to expand the bridge.

At the summit, Koizumi would have tried to persuade the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stop fighting and return to the negotiating table as soon as possible in a bid to revive the faltering Middle East peace process, the sources said.

Tokyo has long expressed a desire for a lasting peace in the Middle East, on which resource-deficient Japan relies for about 85 percent of its oil. But Tokyo's diplomatic activities to date to achieve peace in the region have been limited to low-profile steps, including issuing messages calling for an immediate end to the conflict.

The Japanese government eventually abandoned the idea of brokering the peace summit; even if Japan had pursued the idea, it is not clear whether Israel or the Palestinian Authority, headed by Yasser Arafat, would have agreed to the Japanese initiative and get together.

A glimmer of hope for the Middle East peace process emerged when Arafat declared a ceasefire on Sept. 18 and the Israeli government, led by hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, responded with a pledge not to initiate military action against Palestinians.

Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met at Gaza International Airport on Wednesday for truce talks that Sharon had canceled twice previously on the grounds that Arafat was not trying hard enough to contain the violence.

Arafat and Peres agreed on a series of confidence-building measures aimed at bringing an end to a year of fighting that has pushed the fragile Middle East peace process, which was first initiated in the early 1990s, to the brink of collapse.

Their long-awaited talks were the result of intense pressure from the U.S. administration to help clear the way for Arab nations to join a U.S.-led global campaign against terrorism.