Putin and Erdogan meet in an attempt to repair ties after Turkey’s downing of Russian warplane last year

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan may not be BFFs just yet – but relations between the Russian and Turkish leaders are definitely warming.

At a joint news conference on Tuesday in St. Petersburg, Russia’s old imperial capital, the two pledged swift steps to mend the deep rift that opened when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane in November on the Syrian border.

Erdogan had apologized for the downing of the plane before making this visit to Russia — his first trip abroad since a coup attempt against him in mid-July.

Peppering his remarks with references to his “dear friend Vladimir,” Erdogan, who has had tense dealings lately with Washington and Europe, told reporters that Russia and Turkey would “continue our contacts at every level, and intensify them.”

He said Turkey was prepared to move ahead with a major natural-gas pipeline project with Russia and with a deal for Russia to help build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Asked if ties between the two nations had returned to the level of closeness before the fighter plane’s downing, Putin replied, referring to the previous relationship: “Of course we want that, and we will achieve that.”

The Russian leader pledged a resumption of tourist trips by Russian nationals to Turkey, which had been halted after the plane incident. Russian tourism is an important source of revenue for the Turks.

Putin also promised a step-by-step lifting of punishing restrictions on Russia’s imports of Turkish agricultural products that had been imposed seven months earlier.

Notably, the two leaders did not address Syria, a major point of contention. Moscow backs Syrian President Bashar Assad and is carrying out airstrikes in support of his regime; Erdogan’s government has insisted Assad must go. The two leaders said they would be discussing Syria after their news conference.

Many analysts read the thawing of relations as a bid on Putin’s part to drive a wedge between Turkey and its NATO allies in the transatlantic military alliance — and on Erdogan’s part, to pointedly remind the West that he has other friendships to fall back on.

At the news conference, Erdogan made a point of gratefully mentioning Putin’s call expressing support for him against coup plotters, even though the two leaders were not on the best of terms at the time.

The Turkish president has accused the West of not offering him sufficient backing at a time of crisis — and, in Washington’s case, of harboring the man Erdogan accuses of masterminding the coup, the elderly Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Gulen denies involvement, and the United States says Turkey has not offered proof that would be sufficient to extradite him.

Laura.King@latimes.com

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9:55 a.m.: This article was updated with Times reporting.

This article was originally published at 5:40 a.m.