Urgent efforts to revive the ailing political process were dealt a severe blow Tuesday night after the IRA pulled out of its participation with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body, and withdrew its proposals aimed at breaking the disarmament deadlock.
The hope of current talks, involving the British and Irish governments and the North's proBelfast Agreement parties, achieving the lifting of the suspension of the political institutions were centred on positive elements in the second report from Gen de Chastelain issued on Friday night.
But the IRA statement appears to have put back any chance of that suspension being quickly revoked, as the Irish Government and several of the pro-agreement parties were seeking. The IRA accused the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, and the Ulster Unionist Party leadership of rejecting the propositions it put to the commission on decommissioning.
The IRA said a "deeper crisis" had been created by this move. It claimed the British government and the UUP "obviously have no desire to deal with the issue of arms except on their own terms".
The IRA added: "Those who seek a military victory in this way need to understand that this cannot and will not happen. Those who have made the political process conditional on the decommissioning of silenced IRA guns are responsible for the current crisis in the peace process.
"In the light of these changed circumstances the leadership of the IRA have decided to end our engagement with the IICD. We are also withdrawing all propositions put to the IICD by our representative since November."
It was hoped a resolution could be found through Gen de Chastelain providing clarification of his second report. The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, did meet the general last night but by then the IRA had already issued its statement.
He accused republicans of squandering "the best opportunity that they have had to date to resolve this issue". The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, said the IRA statement was "not good news", but he knew of no security threat from the IRA at present.
"We have no intelligence to indicate that the Provisional IRA intend to re-engage in acts of violence contrary to their stated cessation of violence. So in that sense it has no immediate implication for the security situation," he told the BBC.
The IRA statement was issued about two hours after Mr Adams signalled that Sinn Féin might not participate in a review of the agreement following Mr Mandelson's decision last Friday night suspending the political institutions.
Mr Adams, when asked about the proposed review of the agreement, insisted: "We certainly have no notion of being part of any review, because there is no basis for a review. The institutions need to be in place before any progress can be made on any issue."