Insight - Street violence in Kiev dims prospects for peace effort in Ukraine's east

Demonstrators, who are against a constitutional amendment on decentralization, clash with police outside the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine, August 31, 2015. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

KIEV (Reuters) - A spasm of street violence has driven home how hard it is going to be for Ukrainian President President Petro Poroshenko to rally national support behind an internationally-brokered deal to bring peace to the east of his country.

The violence outside parliament on Monday was triggered by the government's "decentralisation" plans - a key part of the deal agreed in Minsk, Belarus in February - that would give special status and greater autonomy to separatist-held areas of the east.