Japanese officials said the planned talks would cover a wide range of issues that would probably include North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by the North in the 1970s and ’80s. A North Korean official in Shenyang was also quoted by the Japanese news media as expressing hope that the talks would improve frozen ties between the two nations.

“Our goal is to properly settle outstanding issues of both sides,” Ryu Song-il, identified as the official in charge of Japanese affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying by the Kyodo News Agency. “I believe it is important that relations between the two countries can be improved soon.”

The efforts at rapprochement between the two countries come as Japan has appeared increasingly isolated in the region during Mr. Abe’s first year in office and as his government has sought to gain its first big diplomatic success. Mr. Abe’s nationalistic views have contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations between Japan and its closest neighbors, China and South Korea, with whom it is locked in emotional disputes over history and territory.

Overtures to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about resolving a separate dispute over islands in the Pacific have been delayed by the crisis in Crimea.

Japanese analysts and officials have said that Mr. Abe now appears to be focusing on North Korea, in a bet that its isolated leader, Kim Jong-un, may be willing to make concessions in exchange for economic aid to his impoverished nation. Last May, speaking a day after a top aide returned from a secretive visit to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Mr. Abe told Parliament that he would consider meeting with Mr. Kim to resolve the issue of abducted Japanese.