Two Turkish hijackers who diverted a Turkish airliner to the southern Italian airport of Brindisi on Tuesday handed themselves over to police some two hours after landing .
The hijackers were reported to be intent on sending a message to Pope Benedict XVI .
The plane, a Boeing 737 belonging to Turkish Airlines, was intercepted and escorted to Brindisi airport by two Italian military jets .
Turkish Airlines said the plane had been hijacked while travelling from the Albanian capital of Tirana to Istanbul but said none of the 113 passengers and crew abroad had been hurt .
"The passengers and crew are under no threat," airline chairman Candan Karlitekin told Turkish television and local police sources said the hijackers were unarmed .
Shortly before 20.00 local, the plane's co-pilot disembarked from the plane and began talking to police and other officials .
According to Italian national civil aviation agency ENAC, the hijackers had not behaved aggressively and had said they were ready to release the passengers .
Local government sources in Brindisi said the men were seeking political asylum .
It was unclear what the men's objectives were in hijacking the plane. ENAC sources said they wanted to give a message to the pope but gave no details of what it contained .
Turkish television said the hijacking was in protest at Pope Benedict's planned trip to Turkey in late November .
It said the hijackers had wanted the plane to land in Rome but were forced by the Italian military jets to divert to Brindisi .
But the same television network later said one of the men had written to the pope, saying he was a Christian and wanted to avoid military service in Turkey .
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said there was nothing to support the view that the two men wanted to protest against the pope's visit to Turkey at the end of November .
Turkey was one of the Muslim nations to protest last month when the pope made controversial comments about Islam during a lecture at a German university .
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Vatican had been alerted and was waiting for details. Another well-placed Vatican source stressed that the pope's visit to Turkey would go ahead as planned, regardless of the reasons for the hijacking .
Authorities in Istanbul identified one of the two hijackers as Hakan Eknci and the other only by his first name Mahmut .
