UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week issued a 40-page report in his bid to end the long-running stalemate over the war-divided island of Cyprus. In it he firmly rejected the classic argument of the occupier: that the spoils of war belong to the victor. The finding applies equally to Israel, itself an occupying power.

The report blamed Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Turkey for the collapse of the peace process. Annan said he was left with no alternative but to terminate reunification talks on Cyprus, launched in 1999.

Denktash had insisted that the international community make an about-turn to recognize the legitimacy of the breakaway state. This would have required the UN to disregard its earlier censure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. In short, the Turkish side wanted a peace settlement based on realities on the ground created by nearly 30 years of occupation.

Annan said that he was unable to convince Denktash that "the realities of the Cyprus problem are not only the realities on the ground, but the realities of international law and international politics".

Annan's stance on Cyprus would have given no comfort to the Israeli leadership, who must surely have been closely following the verdict, as Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, like the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, has been declared illegal under international law.

Also, Denktash's justification for legitimacy is mirrored in the words and attitude of Israeli political leaders, and most recently by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who said that the argument for an enlarged Israel can be reinforced by creating facts on the ground.

The facts on the ground that Sharon speaks of are being created by the state expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and populating them with settlers. Meanwhile, an aggressive Israeli highway construction program is linking up the settler communities, while forming noose-like beltways around the Palestinian population centers, which they have encircled with barbed wire and trenches. Road closures and checkpoints make travel extremely slow, effectively cutting off the hundreds of small agricultural villages. Farmers have lost their primary markets as a result and laborers cannot find work. Poverty is forcing two million Palestinians into eight population centers.

Sharon thinks that in time the new demographic reality will become irreversible. Robert Novak wrote in The Washington Post in June last year that Sharon told members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he could not foresee an "Israeli-Palestinian deal for at least 10 years and talked of a 100-year struggle with Arabs".

But the international community is not prepared to wait that long, and its demands for a speedy and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are as strong as ever. Unfortunately, in the current international order, bringing peace to Israelis and Palestinians is in the hands of the US.

Still, Annan's insistence that international law overrides any brute-imposed reality by an occupying power must be applauded. It proves that now, more than ever, the UN is still the best body we have to articulate our global conscience.Grahame Bennett is publisher and editor of the Middle East Times .