By Gwladys Fouche and Julia Symmes Cobb
OSLO, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The Norwegian Nobel Institute cancelled a planned press conference on Tuesday with this year's Peace Prize laureate, Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado, ahead of Wednesday's award ceremony in Oslo.
Machado, 58, has been subject to a decade-long travel ban imposed by the government of President Nicolas Maduro and has been in hiding for more than a year. Her whereabouts were not immediately known.
A press conference was originally scheduled in Oslo for 1300 local time (1200 GMT) on Tuesday, but was at first delayed to an unspecified time. The institute later said that the media event "will not take place today".
The laureate "has herself stated in interviews how challenging the journey to Oslo, Norway will be," the Nobel institute said in the statement.
"We therefore cannot at this point provide any further information about when and how she will arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony."
The award ceremony is due to take place on Wednesday at 1300 local-time (1200 GMT) at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja and at least four Latin American heads of state, including Argentina's Javier Milei and Ecuador's Daniel Noboa.
ALIGNED WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Machado for her fight against what it called a dictatorship.
She has aligned with hawks close to U.S. President Donald Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, despite doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence community.
When she won the award in October, Machado dedicated the award in part to Trump, who has himself said that he deserved the honour.
An industrial engineer, Machado was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election despite having won the opposition's primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.
The electoral authority and top court declared Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won, and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, Gwladys Fouche, Julia Symmes Cobb, Leonhard Foeger, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Ilze Filks, editing by Terje Solsvik and Howard Goller)
