Venezuela’s government said on Monday it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe as part of a restructuring of its foreign service after weeks of rising tensions with the United States, Reuters writes.
The government said the closures are part of a “strategic reallocation of resources” and consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia will be provided by diplomatic missions.
Norway’s foreign ministry said it received notification of the embassy closure but was not informed of the reasons for the decision. Norway does not have an embassy in Caracas and handles local affairs through its embassy in the capital of neighbouring Colombia.
The announcement of the closure came just days after the Nobel Committee in Oslo announced that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle for democracy in the South American country.
“The Nobel Prize is independent of the Norwegian government, and when it comes to the question of the prize, we turn to the Nobel Committee,” a Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters.
Norway’s Nobel Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
The Venezuelan embassy in Oslo also did not respond to a request for comment.