ROME, Oct 3: Two unarmed Turkish hijackers with a message for Pope Benedict XVI surrendered to Italian police on Tuesday after commandeering a plane with 107 passengers aboard.

The Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400 was hijacked during a flight from Albania to Istanbul and forced to land in southern Italy, with Italian civil aviation authorities saying that the pair had a message for the pope, who is due to visit Turkey in late November.

A traveller aboard the plane told Turkish television by cell phone that one of the hijackers apologised to the passengers before surrendering at around 8:00pm (1100pm PST), two hours after Italian F-16s forced the aircraft to land in Brindisi.

“He is now apologising to everyone and is waving to us,” Ergun Ozkoseoglu told the NTV channel as other passengers could be heard breaking into applause in the background.

“There was no panic” throughout the standoff, Ozkoseoglu said. “They did not tell us why they hijacked the plane.”

Istanbul vice governor Vedat Muftuoglu said the hijackers, described as unaggressive, took control of the plane some 15 to 20 minutes after it took off from the Albanian capital Tirana.

“They said their action was to protest the pope’s visit,” Muftuoglu told CNN-Turk television.

However Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV that the hijackers were seeking political asylum and there are no indications that they were protesting against the pope’s planned visit to Turkey.

Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit Turkey in November despite a furore over the pope’s recent remarks on Islam.—AFP