THE surrender of the ferry hijackers occurred as Turkey's caretaker Prime Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, was given the chance of setting up a new government following last month inconclusive general elections
The bloodless ending of the hijack, compared to the bloody outcome of the fighting in Dagestan, seemed to prove Ankara right in its approach. Nevertheless this crisis has shown Turkey's rich ethnic mosaic to be a potential Achilles heel in a region torn by conflict.
"The president has given me the task of forming a government, as head of the True Path Party," Ms Ciller said after a meeting with President Suleyman Demirel in Ankara.
The post of prime minister designate was vacated earlier yesterday by the Islamist leader, Mr Necmettin Erbakan, who failed to find a coalition partner in either of the two conservative parties that stress adherence to Turkey's secular foundations.
But Mr Erbakan said he was certain that any coalition would include his Welfare Party (RP), which came first at the polls with 158 seats in the 550 member parliament.
Ms Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) has 135 deputies, two more than the Motherland Party of her fellow conservative, Mr Mesut Yilmaz. She has tried to set up a coalition with Mr Yilmaz but personal rivalry between the two has hindered the attempt.
The political uncertainty has been blamed for the recent violence which rocked the country. An upsurge in left wing attacks and renewed violence in the Kurdish southeast was followed this week by the hijacking of the, Black Sea ferry, with some 200, people on board, most of them Russians.
The hostage taking was clearly an embarrassing incident for Ankara, torn between its desire toe keep relations with Moscow on, an even keel and the sympathy felt by Turks for the cause of the Muslim Chechens.
Aware of the parallells that could be drawn between the Chechnya Moscow conflict and its own struggle with separatist "Kurds, Ankara stressed that it wanted the territorial integrity of Russia preserved, although it hoped for a peaceful settlement.
Mr Muhammed Tokcan, the leader of the armed gang is, like hundreds of thousands of other Turks, of Caucasian origin, most of whom are descendants of the mountain peoples forced by Tsarist troops to emigrate at the end of the 19th century.
Of Abkhaz origin, he is a native of Duzce, a small town south cast of Istanbul, where the Caucasians form a tight knit community and still speak the languages of their ancestors.
But, while most sympathise with the cause of their cousins in the Caucasus, few would go as far as Mr Tokcan and his comrades. Nevertheless the hijack provided a focus point for all these supporters. Five thousand angry Islamic radicals burned the Russian flag on Beyazit Square after Friday prayers.
