SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean state media released a photograph and video of Kim Jong-un, the son and presumed heir of the ailing dictator, Kim Jong-il, the first verified images of the young man as an adult.

The photo was published in the Thursday issue of North Korea’s main newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, and showed him in a dark suit with his father and a large group of senior Workers’ Party officials. He bears a strong resemblance to his father and, some thought, his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founder.

Video broadcast on television showed Kim Jong-un sitting in the front row of the Workers Party meeting this week, among a group of senior leaders.

This week, at a landmark meeting of the Workers’ Party in the capital, Pyongyang, the younger Mr. Kim, who is believed to be 27 or 28, was given the rank of four-star general in the People’s Army and was named a deputy chairman of the party’s military commission. He also became a member of the party’s Central Committee, an ideological and policy-making post.