A woman selects Turkish grapefruit in a supermarket in Moscow, Russia, on Nov. 29, 2015. (Xinhua/Dai Tianfang)

MOSCOW, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Russia will lift a ban on imports of several vegetables from Turkey beginning tomorrow, the country's animal and plant health watchdog said Thursday.

The watchdog said in a statement that Moscow allowed nine Turkish producers to export lettuce, courgette, pumpkins and pepper to Russia with special safety guarantees from the Turkish government.

Russia slapped a ban on imports of Turkish grapes, apples, pears, strawberries, tomatoes, onions and shallots, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, poultry meat, salt and cloves on Jan. 1, 2016 after the Turkish air force shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian-Turkish border in November 2015.

Turkey said the warplane violated its airspace, which Moscow denied.

The embargo was lifted on all those products except for tomatoes, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented his apologies to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the downing of the warplane in June 2016.

But later Russia imposed a ban on imports of a number of vegetable products from Turkey, including pomegranates, peppers, lettuce, aubergines, courgette, zucchini and pumpkins due to the detection of pests.