Thank you, Mr. President, and Distinguished Members of the Council.

Thank you very much for giving me the floor again to make very brief comments.

This has been a serious challenge for all of us. I am quite sure that everybody must have felt pain. In that regard, I appreciate the pains felt by Their Excellencies President Tadic and Sejdiu. It has been a very difficult and painful process for me, to engage in this consultation process, to find out a mutually acceptable and least objectionable formula to bring peace and security in this region. Our mission - my overriding priority and concern - is how to bring peace and security and maintain such peace and security, in the region. This is what I am going to do and I may need your sympathetic understanding in what I am going to do as Secretary-General. This is going to be a part of the broad mandate which is given to me by the Charter of the United Nations and by Resolution 1244 which the Security Council members adopted in 1999.

Mr. President, I have shared with the Security Council my assessment of the situation in Kosovo, and described my intensive efforts with the sides and with the key stakeholders to reach a compromise solution. These efforts have resulted in an idea for the international civil presence that is before the Council today.

This package is a practical and workable solution - a concrete and sustainable response to a complex and difficult situation. It is founded on the imperative, overriding need, as I said, to maintain international peace and security and stability in Kosovo and the region, while responding and adapting to changing circumstances on the ground.

The package furthers the objectives of the United Nations in Kosovo. Its aim is to consolidate the significant achievements of 9 years of interim administration. It takes into account the profoundly changed reality in Kosovo, while also addressing areas of concern for Serbia and for Kosovo's Serb community. The package is strictly status-neutral and is fully within the framework of Security Council resolution 1244, which remains the legal framework for UNMIK until and unless the Council decides otherwise. It recognizes the importance of an enhanced role for the European Union in Kosovo, as part of the European Union's efforts to promote progress and stability in the Western Balkans.

While no solution is ideal, this package is, I am convinced, the result of an effort at compromise, and which has benefited from extensive consultations. It is supported by all my senior advisors, who have worked with me tirelessly and intensively in developing this package. It is, therefore, the view of the United Nations that this package constitutes the best possible way forward in order to manage the situation in Kosovo. Today's meeting has provided the Security Council with an important opportunity to consider this package.

Finally, the Secretariat and myself, as Secretary-General, are ready to brief the Council on operational developments on Kosovo, and share with the Council the challenges that our Mission has been focusing on, including the one in Mitrovica referred to by the distinguished representative of Russia.

Thank you very much.