The issue of decommissioning IRA weapons remains an obstacle to the establishment of the Assembly executive, the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has warned.
Addressing the Assembly, which sat in the old Stormont parliament chamber yesterday for the first time, he said: "There can be neither trust nor equality if one party to the agreement is not prepared to destroy their weapons of war.
"I simply cannot reconcile people in positions of government with a failure to discharge their responsibility under the agreement to dismantle terrorist organisations."
Mr Trimble also gave notice to the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party that taking part in the executive in a selective fashion would not be tolerated.
The First Minister came out strongly against the DUP's intention to take up ministerial positions but not to attend executive meetings with Sinn Fein. "I don't want to have rogue ministers who ignore the common programme," he said.
The Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon of the SDLP, took a similar stance, criticising the idea of ministers sitting in the "ivory tower of their departments outside the central collective".
However, Dr Paisley claimed Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon were divided on the way forward for the Assembly. He called on Mr Trimble's party to clarify its position on key issues.
"They have a responsibility now to say to us what their attitude is to these questions: the question of whether they are prepared to sit down with IRA/Sinn Fein in a government of Northern Ireland, the question concerning the matter of decommissioning and the question concerning the release of prisoners."
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams said he wanted to be "friends" with Dr Paisley and urged that the Assembly not be turned into a "shouting shop".
Yesterday's session - the Assembly's second - opened with a period of silence in memory of the 29 people who died in the Omagh bombing. A debate on the bombing and its aftermath was adjourned until this morning.
During a discussion on voting rights and procedures, it emerged that two anti-agreement Assembly members who resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party last week - before they could be expelled for running against official candidates in the June election - were forming a new party.
Mr Trimble insisted that the executive ministers must work to a common purpose. Mr Mallon also emphasised this theme. The executive could not operate successfully unless there were co-operation and consensus. "There has got to be that type of collective responsibility," he said.
What was important about his relationship with Mr Trimble was not only the fact that they worked well together but that the public could see they were working together. "The community derives strength and hope from that," he added.
Mr Mallon told the Assembly that community respect and trust were not built in an instant. "They are built on the street, and involve dismantling past barriers, promoting tolerance, and developing understanding, creating space for others, being inclusive.
"Since direct rule all of us have denounced and derided the efforts of successive secretaries and under-secretaries of state. Usually, but not always, we were right. Now it's our turn. There is no bolt-hole, no hiding place. We have to move from criticism to construction, from making demands to making choices, from claiming rights to taking responsibilities."
In a separate development, the Portadown District of the Orange Order postponed a day-long festival to celebrate Ulster-Scots culture, scheduled for the town on September 26th.
The event was expected to attract up to 22,000 loyalists and 350 bands to the town which has been the scene of numerous incidents of sectarian violence in recent weeks. The festival has been rescheduled for next spring.