The joint tourism program had been an important source of cash for the North until it was suspended in 2008 after a South Korean tourist who wandered into a restricted area was shot to death by North Korean soldiers. South Korea has said it would reopen the program only after the North apologized for the killing, agreed to a joint investigation and took steps to prevent similar episodes and guarantee the safety of tourists.

Both sides failed to narrow their differences in the talks that began on Friday.

They parted on Saturday, without even agreeing on when to meet again.

“The North side focused on resuming the Diamond Mountain tourism and linked it to the reunions of separated family members,” Mr. Hwang said. “Our side maintained that they were separate issues and that it was inappropriate to link them.”

The collapse of the talks left inter-Korean relations mired in a decades-long standoff.

The two Koreas appeared headed for an armed clash as recently as August, after the South accused the North of planting land mines that maimed two of its border guards. The North denied the accusations. The sides later agreed to negotiations, and in October, arranged a new round of reunions in which hundreds of war-separated family members were allowed to meet their relatives for the first time in more than six decades.

South Korea wants such reunions to be held on a regular basis so that separated family members, most of them in their 80s and older, can meet with long-lost relatives before they die.