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The New York Times writes about the $1 billion project in Zvrnec and Sazan and the voices against it

2024-09-04 09:06:20Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

The New York Times writes about the $1 billion project in Zvrnec and Sazan and

The New York Times

The Trump family's investment deals in Albania are fueling ongoing resentment. The New York Times writes that local landowners are questioning how Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were able to create development rights for two luxury hotels on hot coastal properties. Two luxury real estate projects in Albania proposed by former President Donald J. Trump's son-in-law are fueling ongoing tensions in Vlora. As the Trump family faces allegations that land it hopes to develop has been improperly set aside.

The dispute centers on $1 billion worth of investments that Ivanka Trump, the former president's eldest daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are pursuing in Albania along the southern European nation's Mediterranean coast in land once controlled by a communist government.

Kushner announced plans to build an opulent complex of hotels and beach villas on a piece of land that an Albanian family has farmed for generations. The family says part of this property was corruptly confiscated after the end of communist rule in 1991.

"They are trying to take from us what is ours," said Bledar Alexandros Konomi, who as a young man helped tend cattle on the land now proposed for Kushner's hotel, and whose claim is supported by Albanian court records. .

On the second site, a small strategically located island called Sazan, where the Soviet Union sent military supplies during the Cold War, Kushner is working with senior government officials in Albania to secure exclusive development rights.

What has not been public is that there is a second proposal to develop the same island, submitted by an Albanian-American real estate developer executive from New York.

The developer, Evi Kokalari-Angelakis, said in an interview that the Albanian government has effectively ignored her proposal to build on the island because it wants to impress Trump, in case he is re-elected, and can help Albania in its goals. its foreign policy.

"My biggest disadvantage is that I'm up against Trump's daughter and son-in-law," Ms Kokalari-Angelakis said. She added that she agreed to talk to The Times about her hotel proposal only after Mrs. Trump publicly asserted in July that she and Mr. Kushner had already secured a deal to build on Sazan.

"They closed the door in my face. It is absolutely rude," said Kokalari-Angelakis.

Kokalari-Angelakis is not alone in raising questions about Mr. Kushner's proposed projects in Albania. Agron Shehaj, a member of the opposition party in the Albanian parliament, said that the process of choosing a developer for the island of Sazan has been very dark.

"Of course, for Albania, which is a poor country, the development of tourism is important. But here there was a lack of transparency and it makes it seem like this is a private agreement that is in the political interest of the Prime Minister of Albania", said Shehaj in an interview.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, in a statement provided to The Times through a spokesman, and Kushner, in an interview, both denied any suggestion that the Albanian government was taking steps to benefit Kushner because of his relationship with Donald Trump.

"The fact that such a well-known American entrepreneur shows his interest in investing in Albania makes us very proud and happy. This shows on another level to the USA and the world that there is a new rising star in the beautiful Mediterranean world of tourism called Albania", said the written statement of Rama's spokesperson.

The Albanian projects are not sponsored by the Trump Organization, the real estate company partially directly owned by Trump, and will not carry the Trump name or brand. Instead, Mr. Kushner, who served as an adviser to Mr. Trump in the White House, set up his own investment company, Affinity Partners, backed largely by funding from the Saudi Arabian government, to make deals in countries around the world. the world.

For these projects in Albania, as well as a separate deal in Serbia, Kushner has teamed up with Richard Grenell, who served as special envoy to the Balkans during the Trump administration. Kushner, in the interview, said that his plans had already helped raise Albania's global profile as a Mediterranean tourist destination.

"We want to do something that people can be very proud of," he said.

Sazani, the largest island in Albania, is located at a strategic point north of the border with Greece and right in front of the heel of Italy's boot. For almost 1,000 years, the largely uninhabited island has been a vital military location, at the narrow entrance to the Adriatic Sea, including use by the Italians as a submarine base during World War II.

After Albania moved closer to the Soviet Union after World War II, the island became a military outpost for hundreds of Albanian soldiers as well as anti-aircraft batteries supplied by Russia. The island today is still littered with bomb shelters, along with a small military port and a collection of dilapidated, mostly abandoned buildings not far from where Kushner and Ivanka Trump want to build.

“If Soviet boasts are to be believed, Saseno has been fortified so as to be impervious to atomic bomb attack,” said a 1951 CIA cable, which was based on Turkish news reports, adding that Sazan ( Saseno was the Italian name of the island) was in a position to completely block the Adriatic Sea, just as Gibraltar blocks the entrance to the Mediterranean.

To enter the island, Mr. Kushner's firm needs approval from the Albanian government. She has already submitted a proposal to the Albanian Investment Development Agency.

"We have this 1,400-acre island in the Mediterranean, and we're bringing in the best architects and the best brands," Ivanka Trump said during a podcast interview this summer.

Mrs. Trump served as an executive at the Trump family's hotel and golf company before her father was elected president, and the project is among the first she has said she will play a direct role in since her father left the House. White.

Asher Abehsera, an American real estate executive whom Kushner has appointed to oversee the projects, said the Albanian government has given preliminary approval to proceed with negotiations to build the Sazan hotel complex, but the final terms of any deal are yet to be finalized. unresolved. But Trump's comments suggesting her family had secured entry to Sazan have drawn criticism in Albania.

Kokalari-Angelakis said she submitted a proposal in the spring, a copy of which was provided to The Times, offering to invest $400 million in Sazan to build a luxury hotel inspired by The Breakers resort in Florida. It would attract a different kind of crowd, potentially the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos of the world, who are constantly traveling to the Italian and Greek coasts, while unfortunately overlooking Albania.

Kokalari-Angelakis said she had had conversations with government officials about her plan and had been asked by the government to prepare a more detailed engineering proposal, only to hear Trump's comments during a podcast in July suggesting a deal had been reached. She said she had decided not to spend more money to pursue her project.

Executives at AIDA, the Albanian agency that oversees such projects, declined an interview request. In a written statement, the agency said plans to build on Sazan Island are still under review and until a decision is made, they have no information to share.

Kokalari-Angelakis believes that the Trumps received special favors from Rama's government.

"The US would have a hard time taking action against Rama's government while he's partnered with Jared and Ivanka," she said.

Rama's spokesman, in his statement, disputed this claim, describing it as "quite amusing" given that Rama has been accused of close ties with the Soros family, which is connected to liberal groups.

"Edi Rama is the prime minister of Albania and for him, anyone who joins our efforts to serve the best interests of Albania is truly a great blessing," the statement said.

Kushner's second proposed development site, where 1,000 beach villas and hotel rooms are planned, is nearby in a community called Zvërnec, adjacent to Vlora, Albania's third largest city, where a new international airport is now under construction and tourism is already booming.

Much of the property near Vlora was confiscated by the government during the communist era and disputes have dragged on since 1991, when the democratically elected government began efforts to return the properties to their rightful owners.

The site that Kushner and Trump have identified for their Zvernec project is the subject of some of these disputes. Records show that large portions of the land now proposed for development by Mr. Kushner were held by families who lived south of the site, in the small village of Zvërnec, where Greek and Albanian are spoken and whose history can be traced back to the century 6th BC

But after the Albanian government began the process of returning the seized lands, a real estate developer named Artur Shehu, along with other members of his family, filed claims for ownership. Sheikh was granted asylum in the United States two decades ago and court records show he lives in Miami, did not respond to a request for comment.

Villagers in Zvrnec, including the Konomi family, have in recent weeks contacted Kushner to notify him in writing of their claim that they own the land where the luxury hotel is planned to be built and that they are not necessarily willing to give it up.

"It is very clear that a big corruption scheme is going on. It's just unbelievable,” said Konomi, a statistics professor at the University of Cincinnati, whose family still frequently visits a home they own in the area.

Kushner has approached one of Albania's wealthiest families, Shefqet Kastrati, a billionaire real estate developer and owner of Albania's largest gas station chain, to help with the Zvërnec project.

Kastrati Group has a long-standing relationship with Prime Minister Rama. He controls several lucrative government contracts, including the international airport in Albania's capital. In interviews, executives at Kushner's firm said they were unaware of the land dispute.

"We are sure that we are working with the rightful holders. If proven otherwise, we will withdraw from the purchase,” Abehsera said in a statement.

Coastal Albanian land has been snapped up in recent years by other powerful and wealthy families, according to Neritan Sejamini, a former adviser to the prime minister's office who has studied how the 1991 law intended to return communist-era land has been exploited. .

"The law has been abused in favor of the politically connected sometimes at the expense of local residents," said Sejamini.

A separate law passed earlier this year also allows luxury hotel projects to be built on land set aside to protect wildlife and the sensitive environment. Thoma Kola, 81, who lives in Zvrnec, said he feared his family could soon lose their land north of the village.

"We will not be able to leave it to our children," he said.


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