The Turkish authorities have seized rifles on a Syria-bound Iranian plane, grounded since the weekend, and questioned its seven-man crew, police and judicial sources said Tuesday. The cargo plane, a civilian Ilyushin, was ordered to land in Diyarbakir, in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east, on Saturday night on suspicion that it had military or illicit cargo on board.
The plane had declared a cargo of spare car parts, but the inspection resulted also in the discovery of a box containing automatic rifles, a police source told AFP, without providing further details on the guns. The crew was taken to a police station for questioning and argued that the weapons were on board as part of routine security measures, declining to give additioanal information, the source said.