BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland awoke to a new political future on Sunday after voters approved a landmark peace deal but local leaders cautioned that obstacles still littered the road to reconciliation. World leaders feted the news that 71 percent of voters north of the Irish border and 94 percent of those in the Irish Republic to the south had backed the plan, which aims to end 30 years of Catholic-Protestant bloodshed. But in Belfast, long memories of bombings, shootings and beatings - as well as gloomy grey skies - blunted any desire for wild celebration. Around 3,600 people have died since violence erupted in British-ruled Northern Ireland in 1969. As election officials were announcing the referendum result in Belfast to cheering supporters, police in the Irish Republic arrested two men driving cars filled with suspected explosives towards Northern Ireland. Ireland`s RTE television said about 454 kg of explosives were seized. That confirmed what many residents here suspected - that the plague of violence would not vanish overnight. Catholics in both north and south of this divided island backed the peace agreement overwhelmingly in what was the first all-island vote since 1918. But the pro-British Protestant community in Northern Ireland had split over the peace agreement and that division remained when the referendum result was announced. In just over a month the people of Northern Ireland return to the polls to elect a new, 108-seat assembly to run their province`s affairs and begin co-operation with the Dublin government. Political analysts say that if Paisley and his allies can elect enough opponents to the assembly, they could wreck its chances of ever achieving anything. John Taylor, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), issued a statement warning his party to be careful about what candidates it picked for the assembly elections. Weapons experts say the IRA retains huge hidden arsenals of weapons and explosives - perhaps enough to blow up 2,500 homes. Blair says the agreement stipulates that guns must be surrendered within two years but the IRA has so far spurned all pleas to decommission.