Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado has returned home after nearly a year in exile and says she is ready to sit down with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, the former deputy of ousted leader Nicolás Maduro.

Machado, 59, landed in Caracas on Sunday, October 25, announcing her arrival on social media. Thousands of supporters lined roads, toll booths and streets in the capital to welcome her, according to Euronews and CNN. Party sources said she had tried at least seven times to get back into the country since she slipped out clandestinely in December 2025 to collect the Nobel prize in Oslo.

Ready to talk

On Monday, her camp signalled a willingness to negotiate with the interim authorities she has long opposed. Her spokesperson, Claudia Macero, told Unión Radio that Machado "has said she is willing to sit down not only with Delcy (Rodríguez), but with whoever she needs to sit down with."

Rodríguez, who had warned before the return that Machado would have to answer for her actions, dismissed the homecoming as a "show", according to reports.

Rodríguez took over as interim president with Washington's backing after US forces captured Maduro in a military operation in January and flew him to the United States, where he is imprisoned. Her government has promised elections but has not set a date. Machado's Vente Venezuela party wants a vote in 2027 and wants her allowed to stand. She was barred from the 2024 presidential election, when her movement backed Edmundo González Urrutia.

Washington urges support for talks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed what he called "the conditions allowing for the safe return of Ms. Machado to Venezuela" in a post on X on Sunday.

"The United States expects the freedoms of all sectors of Venezuelan politics to continue to be respected," Rubio wrote, adding that "we expect all political actors to support these talks."

Machado's party is not part of the US-backed negotiating delegation, though she has said she will not obstruct the process, Latin Times reported. The latest round of talks ended without a definitive agreement, with further meetings planned for November.

The European Union also urged an inclusive dialogue. "We trust that the Venezuelan authorities and all political actors will seize this opportunity," EU foreign affairs spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said.

President Donald Trump, to whom Machado presented her Nobel medal, described her as "a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel Prize, so what else can I say?"

Scars of the crackdown

Machado's return comes against the memory of the crackdown that followed the disputed 2024 election, in which 28 people were killed and more than 2,400 detained, including dozens of her associates. Some Venezuelan exiles in South Florida told CBS News they were sceptical about negotiating with a figure from the old government.

Why oil-importing Kenya should watch

Venezuela sits on the world's largest proven crude reserves, but its output has collapsed to about one million barrels a day from roughly three million decades ago. Rodríguez has opened a significant share of the country's oil to the United States and signed new oil and gas deals with foreign companies.

A stable political settlement that lifts Venezuelan production would add supply to a global market strained by the Iran war, where Brent crude has traded above $110 a barrel. For import-dependent economies such as Kenya, where pump prices track world crude, any extra barrels from Caracas would be welcome relief, though analysts caution that rebuilding Venezuela's battered oil industry will take years.

For now, the question is whether Machado's return opens a path to elections or deepens the standoff with the interim government.

Photos: Euronews/AP (María Corina Machado greets supporters in Caracas); Presidencia de Venezuela/Wikimedia Commons, public domain (Delcy Rodríguez)