Hijacker Of Turkish Plane Surrenders

A Turkish man hijacked a commercial passenger plane on Tuesday flying from the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

A Turkish man hijacked a commercial passenger plane on Tuesday flying from the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir but then gave himself up to the authorities, an Ankara airport official said.

"The hijacker has surrendered," the official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

The hijacker was named as Mehmet Goksin Gol by the state-run Anatolian news agency. The official said police believed he acted from personal, not political motives, and may be mentally ill.

Earlier, CNN Turk television said a woman hijacker had been arrested but this could not immediately be confirmed.

The Pegasus Airline plane had been carrying about 175 passengers from the southeast city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul, Turkish broadcasters reported.

Special forces had boarded the plane on the tarmac of Ankara's international airport and no passengers had yet been allowed off the aircraft, the official said.

The hijacking comes six months after a Turkish man hijacked a Turkish Airlines flight on its way from Tirana, Albania, to Istanbul. It was diverted to Italy.