Sazan Island Is Not for Sale: Albania’s Sovereignty, Wildlife, and the Kushner-Trump Resort Controversy

Sazan Island Is Not a “Find.” It Is Albanian Land.

What the Kushner-Trump resort proposal really means for Albania’s sovereignty, protected land, rare wildlife, and a people who have never been for sale

This spring, thousands of Albanians filled the streets of Tirana carrying cardboard flamingos and one unmistakable message:

Albania is not for sale.

They were not protesting tourism. They were not rejecting foreign investment. They were protesting what this specific deal represents: the transfer of protected, sovereign Albanian land into the hands of a politically connected foreign firm, on terms the Albanian people were never asked to approve.

The story being told abroad is polished and seductive: an untouched Mediterranean island, a billion-euro vision, a luxury resort, a swim that turned into a dream.

But the story Albanians recognize is different.

It is the story of strategic land, protected nature, and national inheritance being quietly moved out of public hands while the people are told to be grateful.

This is not simply about a resort.

It is about Sazan Island, Albanian sovereignty, protected land, environmental destruction, and the dangerous illusion that everything can be sold if the buyer is wealthy enough.

What Is Being Proposed on Sazan Island?

The proposed project is a roughly €1.4 billion luxury development backed by Affinity Partners, the private equity firm founded by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the U.S. president, through an entity called Atlantic Incubation Partners. Ivanka Trump has also served as a public-facing figure for the project.

The development has two major parts: A luxury resort on Sazan Island, Albania’s largest island, and a sprawling coastal development of hotels, villas, and a marina in the Vjosa–Narta area near Vlorë.

Reporting has described plans for thousands of hotel rooms and villas.

In December 2024, Albania’s government awarded the venture strategic investor status, a designation that can allow developers to bypass ordinary regulatory and environmental procedures. Critics have noted that this status was granted before a finalized business plan or completed environmental study was publicly available.

In late May 2026, SPAK, Albania’s independent anti-corruption prosecution office, opened an investigation into the 2024 decisions that changed the protected status of this land. The inquiry is examining whether the reclassification of protected national territory to clear the way for this resort was lawful.

Prime Minister Edi Rama has defended the project as part of Albania’s tourism future and denied favoritism.

Those denials matter. The investigation matters. Both are part of the public record.

But Albanians are not obligated to wait for the worst possible outcome before asking the obvious question: Who gave anyone the right to place protected Albanian land under private foreign control?

Why Sazan Island Was Never an Ordinary Island

Sazan Island sits at the mouth of the Bay of Vlorë, at the Strait of Otranto, the narrow maritime passage between Albania and Italy where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian.

Whoever controls Sazan can observe one of the most important corridors in the region.

That single fact has shaped the island’s entire history.

The Romans contested these waters. The Ottomans launched their 1480 expedition against Otranto from this area. Venice understood its strategic value. In 1920, the island passed to Italy, which called it Saseno and turned it into a heavily fortified military site. It was returned to Albania in 1944.

Under Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, Sazan became a sealed military fortress, filled with bunkers, tunnels, shelters, and military infrastructure. Hoxha reportedly called it the “keys of the Otranto Strait.”

For decades, civilians could not freely access it. Even today, parts of the island still carry warnings related to unexploded ordnance.

This history matters.

Sazan was never coveted simply because it had beautiful beaches.

It was coveted because of where it stands.

Its value has always been strategic, geographic, military, ecological, and national.

That is why the proposed transfer of long-term control to a foreign private firm cannot be reduced to hospitality language. You cannot erase centuries of strategic meaning by calling an island a resort.

When control of a place this important moves from public hands into private, politically connected ones, that is not just a tourism question.

It is a sovereignty question.

Sazan Was Not “Discovered.” It Was Always Albanian.

In a podcast interview, Ivanka Trump described coming upon Sazan almost by accident, stopping for a swim and “finding” the island, as though it were empty, nameless, or waiting to be claimed.

That framing traveled quickly: an untouched island, a Mediterranean discovery, a blank canvas for luxury.

But Sazan is not a vague island in the Mediterranean.

It is Ishulli i Sazanit.

It is in the Adriatic Sea.

It is Albanian land.

It sits in Albanian territorial waters.

It is the largest island in Albania.

It has a name, a history, a military legacy, an ecological role, and a people connected to it.

It was not found during a swim.

It was known, fought over, fortified, protected, and held for centuries by people who are still here.

And legally, Sazan has not been sold. It remains Albanian sovereign territory.

What is being negotiated is a long-term concession with extraordinary privileges. In some ways, that may be even more concerning than a sale. A concession can grant a foreign entity near-total operational control over public land without the same finality, scrutiny, or public reckoning as an outright transfer of ownership.

A prime minister may grant use of land. But the land itself belongs to the Albanian people.

And the Albanian people were never meaningfully asked.

The Living Island Albania Is Being Asked to Pave

Sazan is not empty.

Its surrounding waters are part of the Karaburun–Sazan Marine National Park, established in 2010 as Albania’s only marine national park. The area is also recognized under the Barcelona Convention as a protected Mediterranean site.

This is one of the last undeveloped coastal areas in Europe.

It shelters some of the rarest life in the region.

The Mediterranean monk seal, one of the most endangered mammals on Earth, has been documented along this coastline. Loggerhead, green, and leatherback turtles use nearby beaches. Dolphins and sperm whales pass through these waters. Beneath the surface are Posidonia seagrass meadows and red coral. On Sazan itself, bat species and fragile ecosystems remain tied to the island’s long isolation.

The nearby Vjosa–Narta lagoon is a critical wetland sanctuary for flamingos and migratory birds, which is why protesters carried pink flamingos through Tirana.

The symbolism was not random.

The flamingo became a reminder that what is being threatened is not only land.

It is life.

The legal door opened when protections were weakened. A 2024 law permits five-star development even inside protected areas, and the protected status of this specific land was altered before the project could move forward.

That sequence is now under investigation.

You do not need to be a scientist to recognize the pattern:

First, the protection is removed.

Then, the protected place is rebranded as an opportunity.

This Is Not Investment in Albania. It Is Extraction.

Albanians are told this project is investment.

We are told it will modernize the country, create jobs, and put Albania on the global tourism map.

But there is a difference between investment and extraction.

Investment leaves a country stronger.

It builds local ownership. It protects national assets. It respects environmental limits. It involves the people whose land, labor, and future are being used.

Extraction does the opposite.

It removes a national asset from public hands, weakens the protections that made it valuable, and concentrates control of strategically and ecologically priceless land in a foreign private firm.

The wealth flows outward.

The risk remains local.

The land is altered permanently.

The people are told to call it progress.

That is not development.

That is the conversion of public inheritance into private luxury.

The deeper objection is about power.

No private fortune, no matter how large, and no government, no matter how eager, should be able to take a piece of a nation’s body and place it under private control.

The wealthy and politically connected already hold enough power.

They do not need a strategic Albanian island too.

Why Albanians Are Defending Sazan

People outside Albania may wonder why a resort has provoked such deep emotion.

To understand that, you have to understand Albania.

Albania has stood for millennia at the threshold between East and West, shaped by mountains, sea, invasion, survival, resistance, and memory. Empires passed through. Some tried to hold it. None erased it.

We carry one of the most distinct languages in Europe. Albanian is its own independent branch of the Indo-European language family. It is not Latin. It is not Slavic. It is not Romance. It is its own living inheritance, tied to the ancient Paleo-Balkan world and surviving where many neighboring ancient languages disappeared.

To speak Albanian is to carry something that has outlasted Rome, Byzantium, the Ottomans, fascism, communism, and the Cold War.

That is why this matters.

Albanians are not simply defending a beach, a view, or a nostalgic idea of land.

They are defending the principle that land belonging to a people cannot be quietly handed over their heads — not to a developer, not to a billionaire, not to a politically connected family, not to anyone.

Sazan held the keys to the strait for centuries.

It remained Albanian.

And it must remain accountable to the Albanian people.

Sazan Is Not for Sale

The advocacy now is simple.

Sazan was not found.

It was not empty.

It was not waiting to be discovered.

It is not a blank canvas for luxury branding.

It is Albanian land, protected nature, strategic history, and public inheritance.

And the question is not whether a resort can be made beautiful.

The question is whether anyone had the right to place what belongs to all Albanians under private foreign control in the first place.

Because Sazan is not a “find.”

It is not a billionaire’s dream.

It is not the developers’ island.

It is Albanian land.

And Albania has never been for sale.

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Disclaimer:

This piece reflects my personal opinion and advocacy as an Albanian. The factual claims are based on public reporting. Any ongoing investigations should be understood as investigations, not findings of guilt.

Sources:

_{The facts in this article are drawn from public reporting. For verification and further reading:
• Newsweek — "Anti-corruption probe targets Kushner-linked resort amid protests" (newsweek.com)
• PBS NewsHour / AP — "Protests grow over resort in Albania linked to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner" (pbs.org)
• Al Jazeera — "Why the Kushners' plan to build an Albanian resort has sparked protests" (aljazeera.com)
• Reuters — "Albania approves luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner's company" (reuters.com)
• Euronews Green — "Deep concern: 40+ environmental groups urge luxury resort on Albanian island to be suspended" (euronews.com)
• Balkan Insight (BIRN) — coverage of strategic investor status for the Sazan project (balkaninsight.com)
• Wikipedia & PeakVisor — Sazan Island and Karaburun–Sazan Marine National Park (history, geography, biodiversity)
• Britannica & the Linguistics Research Center, UT Austin — on the Albanian language as an independent branch of Indo-European}

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