WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in New York next week, if it can be arranged, for their first face-to-face encounter in nearly a year as tension rises over the civil war in Syria, American officials said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama, who has resisted seeing Mr. Putin amid deep division over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine last year, concluded that a meeting might now be useful to reinforce the message that the Kremlin should uphold a cease-fire along its border and at the same time press for diplomacy in Syria.

The leaders would sit down on Monday or Tuesday while in New York for the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly, but the two sides were still trying to finalize a mutually convenient time. The White House declined to confirm the meeting, but administration officials who discussed it on the condition that they not be identified speaking before an announcement said they expected the meeting to happen.

The decision means a break from the administration’s efforts to isolate Russia over its seizure of territory in Ukraine. Russia had indicated for weeks that it wanted a meeting but advisers to Mr. Obama debated whether it was worth engaging Russia given its rising involvement in the Middle East. Some expressed concern that such a meeting would play into Mr. Putin’s hands and reward, in their eyes, an international bully.