OSLO, Norway — Venezuelan dissident María Corina Machado said she plans to ultimately go back home and disappear from authorities to continue fighting for democracy.

Speaking at a news conference in Oslo on Thursday, after emerging in the Norwegian capital in the early hours, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said she will return “as soon as possible.”

“I will return to Venezuela when there are enough conditions in terms of security, it doesn’t depend on the regime’s exit,” Machado said.

“When I go back, there are two possibilities,” she told journalists earlier the same day. “There’s no certainty where the regime will be but if it’s still in power, certainly I will be with my people and they will not know where I am, we have ways to do that.”

The Nobel Institute said that Machado had undergone “a journey in a situation of extreme danger” to reach Norway from her place of hiding in Venezuela. She missed Wednesday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony by hours, and her daughter accepted the award on her behalf.

The perilous trip involved her taking a boat to Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean island about 40 miles away, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Bad weather delayed her journey, the person said.

Machado leads the resistance to President Nicolás Maduro’s autocratic rule. Leaving the country carries a risk of not being allowed back in, which might effectively leave her stuck in exile.

Machado got out of Venezuela on Tuesday with help from members of Maduro’s regime, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Machado confirmed the U.S. government had assisted in getting her out, declining to comment on the journey to not put her helpers at risk.

Machado said she is still considering her next steps to decide “what to do that’s better for our cause.”

“There are some meetings that I believe could be very useful before I go back,” she said, without elaborating.

Following the seizure of an oil tanker by U.S. forces off the Venezuelan coast on Wednesday, President Donald Trump warned that he “wouldn’t be happy” if the Maduro regime were to arrest Machado upon her return.

Asked to comment on the capture of the tanker, Machado signaled she would welcome actions that reduce the oil income for Maduro’s regime.

“We ask the international community to cut those sources,” she said.

“President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where the regime is weaker than ever,” she said. “They start to realize the world is really watching.”

Speculation surrounded Machado’s presence from the moment she was announced as this year’s laureate back in October. The Nobel Committee had said she was due to attend, but a planned press conference in Oslo on Tuesday was postponed and then canceled amid confusion over her whereabouts.

The Nobel Committee’s decision to recognize Machado has been contentious since she has voiced support for the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and Trump’s threats of force to remove Maduro. Still, her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, received a standing ovation on Wednesday when she accepted the award on her mother’s behalf.

After arriving in Oslo, Machado met with her family for the first time in years. She said she’d imagined the moment for weeks ahead of time, wondering which of her three children she would hug first.

“I hugged them all at the same time,” she said, overcome with emotion.

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—With assistance from Stephen Treloar, Thomas Hall and Rob Dawson.

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