The Kremlin said on Friday it did not rule out that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan could meet before a G20 summit scheduled for September in China.

The Kremlin said on Friday it did not rule out that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan could meet before a G20 summit scheduled for September in China.

"It looks like now there will be a month or more of pretty intense contacts (with Turkey on restoring ties)," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.

On Wednesday, the two leaders held their first phone conversation since the beginning of the crisis between their countries.

Moscow-Ankara ties strained last November after Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft with two pilots aboard, claiming the fighter jet had repeatedly violated the Turkish airspace.

Following the incident, Moscow imposed a number of sanctions on Ankara, including import restriction on Turkish foods, a ban on tourist travel to Turkey, an embargo on hiring Turkish citizens in Russia, and a ban on Turkish organizations' activities in Russia.

On Monday, Kremlin said that the Turkish President apologized to Putin over Ankara’s shooting down of the Russian jet.

According to Kremlin, Erdogan expressed his desire “to resolve the situation connected to the downing of a Russian military aircraft."

Turkey, however, later said that it had only expressed regrets to Russia, denying reports of an apology, and retracted a compensation pledge.