Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation after 13 newborn babies died within 24 hours in a state hospital in the western city of Izmir.

It was the second case in two months that has raised concern over standards of care for newborn babies in Turkey.

Turkish prosecutors launched Monday an investigation after the babies, all prematurely born and underdeveloped, died at the Tepecik hospital on Saturday and Sunday due to a possible infection. The local health directorate rejected claims of neglect.

A scientific committee investigating the incident would announce its findings within a few days, the head of the local health directorate, Mehmet Ozkan, told a press conference.

"We believe there was no neglect surrounding the deaths," he said. Ozkan added he could not currently say whether the 13 newborn babies died due to infection or not.

A local prosecutor was also investigating whether neglect may have been a factor.

The local prosecutor’s office on Monday ordered that five of the babies, who had already been interred before officials became suspicious, be exhumed for an autopsy, the agency said.

A soccer match in Yerevan's Hrazdan stadium on Saturday could herald a fresh start in relations between Armenians and Turks that have been marred by hostility for nearly 100 years.
President Abdullah Gul will become the first Turkish leader ever to set foot in neighbouring Armenia when, at the invitation of his Armenian counterpart, he flies to Yerevan to watch his national side play Armenia in a World Cup qualifying match.
The visit has huge symbolic importance for two countries which have no diplomatic ties and whose relationship is haunted by the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War One.
If they can move beyond the symbolism to re-establish normal relations, that could have huge significance for Turkey's role as a regional power, for energy flows from the Caspian Sea and for Western influence in a South Caucasus region where Russia flexed its muscles last month by sending troops into Georgia.
"Football diplomacy will become a new term in the international community's lexicon," if after Saturday's match there is a real improvement in relations, former Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian told.
Turkey has never opened an embassy in Armenia and in 1993 Ankara closed their land border in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan, a Turkic-speaking ally which was fighting Armenian-backed separatists over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Armenia, supported by many Western historians, says up to 1.5 million of its people were killed in a genocide. Turkey denies there was genocide and says the deaths were the result of inter-ethnic conflict that also killed many Muslim Turks.

A Turkish delegation would visit Yerevan to hold meetings with their Armenian counterparts to convey Turkey's proposal for a Caucasus alliance, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Sunday after meeting with his Georgian counterpart in Istanbul.

Turkey lays out plans for Caucasian alliance as Georgian FM in Istanbul

Turkey's proposal was the country's latest effort to promote peace between Georgia and Russia since they fought a war this month over Georgia's separatist republic of South Ossetia.

Babacan hosted Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili, two days before he is to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the same city.

Georgia welcomed Turkey's proposal for a Caucasus alliance, Babacan told a joint press conference with his Georgian counterpart Tkeshelashvili. Georgian foreign minister, however, said her country would only consider joining such a group after Russian forces leave his country and fully apply the ceasefire.

Babacan said Turkey saw "Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform" as a mechanism through which countries could discuss cooperation opportunities particularly in economy, discuss some concrete measures particularly confidence-building ones, and find solutions to problems.
 
He added Turkey wanted to see five countries in the platform, and had talks with all those countries.

"I had the opportunity to discuss the proposal in detail with Tkeshelashvili, and I also debated it with Azerbaijan," he said.

Days after Russia scored a stunning geopolitical victory in the Caucasus, President Abdullah Gül of Turkey said he saw a new multipolar world emerging from the wreckage of war.

The conflict in Georgia, Gül asserted, showed that the United States could no longer shape global politics on its own, and should begin sharing power with other countries.

"I don't think you can control all the world from one centre," Gül told the Guardian. "There are big nations. There are huge populations. There is unbelievable economic development in some parts of the world. So what we have to do is, instead of unilateral actions, act all together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge."

Gül, relaxing in a hotel suite with a spectacular view of the glistening Bosphorus, spoke just hours before meeting with the visiting president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He rejected the idea, promoted by the United States and Israel, that the best way to deal with Iran was to isolate, sanction and punish it. "There are so many important issues, like the nuclear issue, Iraq, the Caucasus, Afghanistan," he said. "Iran is definitely having some influence of these issues, so we are talking."