Hijacked Turkish plane forced to land in Italy

BRINDISI, Italy, Oct 3 (Reuters) Two Turkish hijackers seeking to send a message to Pope Benedict seized a Turkish passenger plane flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul today and diverted it to Italy.

Turkish television quoted police sources as saying the plane had been hijacked in protest at a planned visit to Turkey next month by the Pope, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.

There was no confirmation of this report.

The Vatican said the Pope was being kept informed about the hijacking but preparations for the trip were still going ahead.

Brindisi airport in southern Italy, where the Turkish Airlines plane, carrying 107 passengers and six crew, landed after being escorted down by Italian jets, was immediately closed.

Italian police said they had begun negotiations with two Turkish citizens who they said had hijacked the plane.

''We're starting negotiations,'' said the head of Brindisi aviation police, adding that the airliner was on the airport tarmac surrounded by police, military and fire brigade vehicles.

''As far as we know, the hijackers want to talk with Italian authorities to send a message to the Pope,'' a spokeswoman for Italy's civil aviation authority ENAC told Reuters.

After a short period of talks, ENAC said it believed the hijackers were ready to surrender.

Turkish Airlines told Turkish NTV television they had established contact with pilot Mursel Gokalp, who said the passengers were all well and the hijackers were unarmed.

The pilot also said the aircraft's doors were locked and no one had yet boarded the plane. CNN Turk's Web site said of the 107 passengers, 80 were Albanian and five Turkish.

HIJACKERS ''COOPERATIVE'' ''Negotiations are going ahead to free the passengers. The hijackers' attitude is quite cooperative so it seems things are relatively calm inside the plane,'' Salvatore Sciacchitano, a senior official from the Italian civil aviation authority, told Sky Italia TV.

Turkish Airlines issued a statement saying: ''Two people forced our TK1476 flight from Tirana to Istanbul to divert to Italy .... It landed without problem at Brindisi airport in Italy. Our passengers do not have any problems.'' Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Holy See was following developments closely and that preparations for the November 28-December 1 trip to Turkey were going ahead.

The Pope has said he regrets the offence caused by the speech, in which he used a medieval quotation linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence, and said he was misunderstood. But Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been one of those who have said they are not entirely satisfied with the apology.

Private broadcaster CNN Turk reported that Italian officials had refused the hijackers' request to send a message to Pope Benedict.

The report could not immediately be confirmed.

A Greek Defence Ministry official said the plane had entered Greek air space at 5:58 pm (1458 GMT) and was soon escorted out by the Greek fighter jets.

''The plane sent the (coded hijack) signal twice while in Greek air space. Four Greek fighter jets took off and accompanied the plane as it left Greek air space towards the Italian city of Brindisi,'' the Greek official told Reuters.

The Italian air force later said it had intercepted the flight, which then landed at Brindisi.

Benedict is due to visit Ankara, Istanbul and the ancient site of Ephesus as a guest of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer from November 28 to December 1.

Benedict upset mainly Muslim but officially secular Turkey even before becoming Pope by publicly opposing Ankara's bid to join the European Union. A number of planes have been hijacked to or from Turkey in the past decade, either by Kurdish rebels or hijackers with Chechen or Islamist sympathies.

REUTERS SP KN2328