Wesley Clark: Kushner’s construction of memorial center in Belgrade betrayal of USA backed by Russia

Jared Kushner's real estate deal with the Serbian government in the location of the former Defense Ministry is facing fresh controversy, this time in the United States.

In May, Affinity Partners, Kushner's investment firm, announced it had signed a USD 500 million deal with the Serbian government to build a luxury hotel in Belgrade, the country's capital, reports the U.S. weekly Newsweek.

The hotel is set to go up on the site of the former Defense Ministry, which was bombed in 1999 during the Kosovo War, and the deal includes a pledge to build a “memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression.”

During the war, the U.S. joined forces with NATO to launch airstrikes against the Serbian government under President Slobodan Milosevic, who, it is said, “had unleashed a program of ethnic cleansing against Albanians in Kosovo.”

Retired General Wesley Clark, who served as NATO's supreme allied commander at the time, has criticized the planned memorial, telling SpyTalk, a Substack publication about national security and espionage, that it is “worse than a reversal” of U.S. policies.

– 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 – Clark said.

Clark made the comments to Michael Isikoff, an American investigative journalist and author, who wrote in the publication that the memorial needed “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 – Isikoff wrote.

– This is part of a broader Russian intelligence movement to split, discredit and weaken NATO. It's Russian imperial pushback – estimated Wesley Clark.

– Should Kushner participate in this? Of course he should not – he added.

Following that, Clark also said in a statement for the CNN that Kushner’s plan “would be a betrayal of the United States.”

The journalist asked Clarke about Kushner’s project:

– You met with Milosevic, “the butcher of the Balkans”, what do you make of the reasoning of Kushner’s firm and what do you make of his possible participation in a project that creates a monument to “NATO aggression”?

– It’s naïve. It wasn’t aggression, it was diplomacy that Milosevic simply refused, to stop killing innocent people – said Clark.

He added that Serbs are “a wonderful group of people, but they’ve never come to terms with what happened under Slobodan Milosevic.”

– He used nationalism to go against other ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia and it’s the same pattern we see today with Vladimir Putin – Wesley Clark said for the CNN.

– I hope Jared Kushner’s firm won’t participate in that. Build a hotel, build a memorial to all the people who died, including mostly Kosovars who were murdered by Serb police forces during this campaign, and nothing about NATO aggression. There was no NATO aggression – Clark estimated.

B. P.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Affinity Partners

Government of Serbia

general Staff building

Jared Kushner

Wesley Clark

Michael Isikoff

memorial to victims of NATO aggression