The political honeymoon was short. Trimble resigned as First Minister on 1 July 2001 in protest at the Provisional IRA's failure to decommission, forcing the Deputy First Minister to step down. Mallon subsequently resigned as deputy leader of the SDLP. In September he announced that he would not stand again as Deputy First Minister.
Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, unless a First and Deputy First Minister are elected within six weeks the government is obliged to call new assembly elections.
To break the political impasse the two governments held talks with the parties to the Agreement at Weston Park in Staffordshire from the 9-11 July and again 13-14 July. The talks broke up without agreement. The two governments then met towards the end of July and put together an intricate "make or break" deal which they presented to the pro-agreement parties on 1 August and allowed them less than a week to respond.
On 9 August, with just three days to go before the six week period of political grace was up the IRA issued a statement on decommissioning which failed to satisfy the Ulster Unionists. With no sign of political movement the Secretary of State Dr John Reid took advantage of a legal loophole in the Northern Ireland Act 2000 which allowed him to suspend the Assembly on 11 August for 24 hours enabling another six weeks of grace to find a political resolution. The political device infuriated the IRA and they withdrew their "historic" offer to put in place a mechanism to put arms beyond use.
The parties failed to reach agreement within the new period of grace and the Secretary of State introduced the 24 hour suspension device again on 22 September. However, this time Dr Reid made it clear that he would not use the legal loophole for a third time.
However, it was events outside Northern Ireland that changed the political dynamic. The arrest in Columbia of three IRA suspects who were allegedly assisting FARC guerrillas cast a shadow of suspicion over the IRA's commitment to decommission. Then on 11 September Islamic extremists attacked the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. This cataclysmic event put enormous international pressure on the Provisional IRA to decommission. On 23 October they announced they had begun a process of disposing of arms. Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was satisfied but two dissident MLAs from his own party and the anti-Agreement Democratic Unionist Party were not.
