Kurdish rebels hijack Turkish ferry: authorities

ISTANBUL: Kurdish rebels hijacked a ferry and took 24 people hostage Friday in the sea of Marmara where their leader Abdullah Ocalan is jailed on an island, the Turkish government said.

Four or five hijackers claiming to be Kurdish rebels seized the ferry off the coast of northwest Turkey late Friday, Transport Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television.

"We think they are four or five ... They say they belong to a branch of the terrorist organisation," he added, referring to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

More than eight hours after the attack happened around 1700 GMT, the hostages were still on board the ferry off the coast of Silivri, west of Istanbul.

Television footage showed one person, probably a hijacker, walking around in a ferry corridor and waving from a window.

The hijackers have conveyed demands for food and fuel through the captured captain, said the minister.

Asked if the demands would be fulfilled, Yildirim said, "We'll evaluate them."

The minister said 18 passengers, five of them women, four crew and two interns were aboard the ferry, the Kartepe, which was making its normal route along the northern coast in the Marmara sea.

One of the hijackers claimed to have a bomb and told the ferry's captain that he wanted media publicity, local mayor Ismail Karaosmanoglu told NTV.

Yildirim said the claims could not be verified.

Patrol boats have been deployed and were scanning a five nautical mile no-go area around the island, it added.

Pro-Kurdish demonstrations are regularly held in Turkish cities in support of Ocalan, who is still considered the PKK's chief despite his imprisonment.

Yildirim said the hijacked Kartepe was being shadowed by coast guard ships which have not had direct contact with the rebels but managed brief exchanges with the captain.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011