Norway reacted with disbelief to the news that Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado gave her award medal to US president Donald Trump, who has long coveted the award.

“That’s completely unheard of,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor with the University of Oslo and a former politician, told public broadcaster NRK. “It’s a total lack of respect for the award, on her part,” she said, calling the act “meaningless” and “pathetic.”

Mr Trump, who claims to deserve the peace prize for having resolved numerous wars during his second term, accepted the medal from the Venezuelan opposition leader at a White House meeting on Thursday.

He has earlier expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The award cannot be shared or transferred, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement last week.

[ Trump praises Venezuela’s Machado for giving him her Nobel medalOpens in new window ]

While Mr Trump expressed gratitude to have been presented the medal he has long pined for, the Nobel Peace Centre has reiterated its rules of possession several times in recent days.

“The decision is final and stands for all time,” Nobel organisers said in a statement last week.

On Thursday, Nobel organisers posted again on X: “A medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel peace prize laureate cannot.”

It did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment on Friday.

Ms Machado has been shut out of Venezuela’s leadership transition since US forces ousted Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd but kept his regime in place.

Ms Machado gave Trump the medal as “a recognition of his unique commitment with our freedom,” she said on Thursday.

The peace prize is arguably the world’s most prestigious award for diplomatic efforts. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established under the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite who died in 1896.

“This is unbelievably embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most recognised and important prizes,” Raymond Johansen, a former Oslo mayor with the ruling Labour Party wrote in a Facebook post. “The awarding of the prize is now so politicised and potentially dangerous that it could easily legitimise an anti-peace prize development.” – Bloomberg