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After weathering criticism over its reliance on a gusher of Saudi cash, Jared Kushner’s investment fund made its first big splash last month when it announced it had signed a $500 million deal with the Serbian government to develop a high end real estate project in downtown Belgrade on the site of a bombed down army building destroyed during the 1999 Kosovo war.
But the fine print of the deal includes a commitment that seems destined to stir up even more international controversy: a pledge by Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, to construct a “memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression”— an allusion to the U.S.-backed bombing campaign that brought the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic to its knees a quarter century ago in response to its relentless campaign of repression and savage massacres of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Among those exercised over the Kushner deal is retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander during the war.
While he has no objection to a U.S. firm investing in Serbia, the planned revisionist memorial—officially proclaiming America’s adversary in the war to have been a victim of “aggression”— “is worse than a reversal” of U.S. policies in the region, said Clark in an interview with SpyTalk. “It’s a betrayal of the United States, its policies and the brave diplomats and airmen who did what they could to stop Serb ethnic cleansing.”
Just as concerning as the whitewashing of Serbian war crimes, Clark said, is the just announced deal between Kushner’s firm and the Serbian government of Aleksander Vučić, a pro-Russian hardliner who once served as minister of information in Milosevic’s government. The memorial project needs to be viewed in a wider geopolitical context: It serves the Kremlin’s core interests in undermining NATO at a time the alliance is engaged in resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“This is part of a broader Russian intelligence movement to split, discredit and weaken NATO,” Clark said. “It’s Russian imperial pushback…Should Kushner participate in this? Of course he should not.”
Neither Kushner nor representatives of his Miami-based firm responded to requests for comment. But the remarks by Clark are likely to draw further attention to a project that has generated strong criticism from Serbian opposition leaders as well as questions about potential conflicts of interest if Kushner’s father in law, Donald Trump (for whom he is once again raising money) is elected president in November.
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Article URL : https://www.spytalk.co/p/kushners-deal-with-pro-russia-serbs?r=2k4r8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web