Methods for detaching a mobile terminal from a mobile communication network. Furthermore, the invention also relates to a mobile terminal and a mobility management entity that perform these methods. The invention is inter alia applicable to a 3GPP LTE-A system following the Evolved Packet System (EPS) architecture. The invention proposes that the detach procedure of a mobile terminal is triggered by the mobile terminal being transferred into idle state. The mobility management entity can trigger the detach procedure in response to this event. The detach procedure may be deferred by a given time span. A detach timer may be configured in the mobile terminal and the mobility entity for this purpose, and upon expiry of the detach timer in the mobile terminal and the mobility management entity, both silently delete the context information related to the mobile terminal's user plane and control plane to detach the mobile terminal.