Not too late for peaceful handover by Maduro, says Nobel laureate

Nicolás Maduro's political downfall is inevitable, the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado has claimed, rejecting claims that the dictator's demise would plunge Venezuela into a Syria-style civil war.

- Tom Phillips Rio de Janeiro Camille Rodríguez Montilla Oslo

Speaking to journalists in Oslo two days after being awarded the Nobel peace prize, Machado voiced confidence her country was on the brink of a new political era amid an intensifying US campaign to unseat Maduro.

"Transition is irreversible," said the conservative pro-democracy activist, who arrived in Norway's capital on Wednesday having dramatically slipped out of Venezuela by boat after nearly a year in hiding.

Machado told reporters that Maduro and senior members of his regime still had time to negotiate a peaceful handover. "But ... Maduro will leave power, whether there is a negotiation or not. We would like it to be through a negotiation," she added, dismissing fears that a change of regime could plunge Venezuela into violence similar to the civil wars in Libya and Syria or the conflict in Afghanistan.

"These [comparisons] are utterly unfounded because the situation [in Venezuela] is completely different. We have ... a well-knit society without religious, racial, regional, sociopolitical divisions," she told reporters from a small number of outlets including the Guardian.

Machado, a 58-year-old former congresswoman from Caracas, has spent almost half of her life battling the Chavista political movement, which Maduro inherited from Hugo Chávez after his death in 2013.