SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong-un, the new leader of North Korea, met Monday with a private delegation of prominent South Koreans, his first face-to-face encounter with any visitors from the estranged South since assuming the top spot a week ago when his father’s death was announced.

The meeting, scrutinized for any hint of Mr. Kim’s intentions toward South Korea, came as the official North Korean news media announced he had been appointed to the top post of the ruling party, another step in what appeared to be a choreographed sequence of events meant to show that he was assuming all the key positions held by his father, Kim Jong-il, the longtime ruler of the isolated, nuclear-armed North.

South Korea had said it would send no official mourners to Kim Jong-il’s funeral, which angered North Korea as a sign of disrespect. But Kim Jong-un’s meeting with the private delegation of mourners, which included the former first lady of South Korea and a top businesswoman, appeared to be cordial.

The South Korean visitors, Lee Hee-ho, the widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, and the chairwoman of Hyundai Asan, Hyun Jeong-eun, which had business ties with North Korea, were the only South Koreans allowed by the government in Seoul to lead private delegations to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to express sympathy over the death of Kim Jong-il on Dec. 17.