By Gwladys Fouche
OSLO, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado said on Friday that Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro would leave power, whether there was a negotiated changeover or not, adding that she was focused on achieving a peaceful transition.
The Venezuelan opposition leader arrived in Oslo early on Thursday, defying a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country, after spending more than a year in hiding.
"Maduro will leave power, whether it is negotiated or not negotiated," Machado, speaking in Spanish, told a press conference in the Norwegian capital. "I am focused on an orderly and peaceful transition."
Venezuela's Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Machado's remarks.
U.S. MILITARY BUILD-UP
Her appearance in Norway comes as the U.S. executes a large-scale military build-up in the southern Caribbean and as U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns for Maduro's ouster. On Wednesday, Trump said the U.S. had seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
Machado was barred from running in the presidential election last year, despite having won the opposition's primary by a landslide. She went into hiding that year after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.
The electoral authority and top court declared President Nicolas 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.
"I have confidence that the immense majority of the Venezuelan armed forces and the police are going, in the instant that the transition begins, to obey orders, guidelines, instructions from the superiors who will be designated by the civil authority duly elected by Venezuelans," she said.
ALIGNED WITH TRUMP
When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she dedicated it in part to Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.
She has aligned herself with hawks close to 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.
Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of military intervention in Venezuela, accusing it of sending narcotics to the United States. The U.S. has already carried out more than 20 strikes against suspected drug vessels, which have raised concerns among lawmakers and legal experts.
"I believe that it has become very clear that... the Venezuelan conflict is absolutely a priority in matters of national security of the United States and in matters of hemispheric security," Machado said on Friday.
Maduro and his government have always denied any involvement in crime and have accused the U.S. of seeking regime change out of a desire to control Venezuela's natural resources, especially its vast oil reserves.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Alex Richardson)
