Hijack Hostages Released Unharmed
By Patrick Quinn, The Associated Press, ATHENS, Greece (AP) - A 20-year-old Turkish man who reportedly used candles to hijack a Turkish Airlines flight was persuaded by Turkey's prime minister to release his hostages after the plane landed in Athens.

Ozgur Gencarslan was arrested Saturday after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek police helped negotiate the release of all 204 people who had been held, 195 passengers and nine crew members. All were unharmed.

According to Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim and conversations between the pilot and Athens control tower, Erdogan telephoned the hijacker and urged him to surrender.

A tape of the conversation between the Turkish pilot and control tower was broadcast by Greece's Mega television network.

"We are negotiating,'' the pilot told the control tower when informed that police had arrived. "Negotiating with whom? I don't understand, please say again,'' the tower asked. "We are negotiating with our prime minister,'' the pilot replied.

Lab tests were being carried out on what Gencarslan claimed were explosives. Gencarslan apparently hijacked the domestic flight because he was reportedly distraught and overwhelmed by family problems.

Authorities in Turkey said the hijacker claimed to have explosives. But they noted that he was seen carrying five candles as he boarded the plane and could have been pretending they were sticks of dynamite - as occurred in a previous hijacking in Istanbul in February.

Gencarslan was being held at police headquarters in Athens, while Turkey sent another plane to take the passengers home after the hijacking, which lasted five hours.

"The investigation will proceed in accordance with the criminal law and all legal procedures will be adhered to,'' Public Order Minister Michalis Chrisohoidis told reporters.

Gencarslan hijacked the Airbus A310 about 25 minutes after it took off late Friday from Istanbul for Ankara.

The domestic flight at first diverted course and began heading toward the Turkish coastal city of Izmir, but later changed course again and headed toward Greece.

The Greek air force scrambled F-16 fighter jets to prevent the plane from landing, but officials quickly called them off.

"Two hundred people are two hundred people. We would have prevented it coming to Athens, but they said they had no fuel and we couldn't risk it,'' Greek government spokesman Chris-tos Protopapas said.

According to Turkish police, Gencarslan hijacked the plane to reunite with his father, who lives in Germany. He was reportedly depressed because his stepfather had barred him from seeing his mother and sister living in eastern Turkey.

Turkish authorities earlier said the hijacker wanted to fly to Berlin and complained that his mother and sister were being kept "hostage.''

"He has some family problems. We used a fatherly and understanding approach to convince him'' to surrender, Yildirim said.

Although the hijacking apparently was not politically motivated, there have been a number of such incidents in the past.

Kurdish, leftist and radical Islamic groups are active in Turkey and have carried out attacks in the past. Chechen militants have also carried out a series of hijackings and hostage-takings to protest Russia's military campaign in Chechnya.

The last hijacking at Istanbul's airport was in February, when a hijacker claiming to have dynamite briefly held two flight attendants hostage before police stormed the aircraft. The police later said the man was only armed with candles.