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Venezuela has closed its embassy in Norway, days after opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, a decision that has raised fresh questions about Caracas’s relations with Europe.
In a statement on Monday, the Venezuelan government said the move was part of a broader “restructuring of its foreign service”, offering no direct mention of Machado’s prize or any specific reason for the closure.
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Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the embassy’s shutdown but expressed disappointment at the decision. “It is regrettable. Despite our differences on several issues, Norway wishes to keep the dialogue open with Venezuela and will continue to work in this direction,” a ministry spokesperson told Reuters. The official also stressed that the Nobel Committee, which selects the Peace Prize laureates, operates independently of the Norwegian government.
The closure comes just three days after Machado, 58, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for what the committee described as her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”. The opposition figure, who has spent much of the past year in hiding, has long been one of the fiercest critics of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose 12-year rule is widely viewed abroad as authoritarian.
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In announcing her award, Nobel Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes praised Machado as a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided … in a brutal authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis.”
Maduro, meanwhile, dismissed the accolade, calling Machado a “demonic witch” in remarks carried by state media.
Machado dedicated her prize to “the suffering people of Venezuela” and to United States president Donald Trump, whose administration had previously backed her efforts to challenge Maduro’s rule.
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In a further reshuffle of its diplomatic network, Venezuela also announced it would close its embassy in Australia while opening two new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, countries it described as “strategic allies in the anti-colonial fight and in resistance to hegemonic pressures”.
Neither Norway nor Australia maintains an embassy in Caracas, and both countries’ consular affairs for Venezuela are handled through their missions in neighbouring Colombia.
