VATICAN CITY, May 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As Turkey is working without tiring to make its long-awaited dream of joining the European Union (E.U.) come true, two Vatican senior figures questioned Sunday, May 25, how suitable the country was to join the union.

Jean-Louis Tauran, foreign minister of the papal enclave, said in an interview with an Italian newspaper that other countries had a better case.

He also questioned whether Israel and Russia were suitable candidates to join the E.U., arguing that the question of the geographical boundaries should be taken into consideration and suggesting that countries such as Moldova and Ukraine should be given priority.

"Is it possible that all countries sharing the heritage of values dear to Europe can submit their candidatures to join the union? Is there not a need to impose geographical frontiers on this union?" Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Tauran as telling the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Another senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, said the E.U. had been posed an extremely delicate problem by the application from Turkey, which he described as a deeply Muslim country with a fast-growing population.

Cardinal Ruini, who is head of the Conference of Italian Bishops, did say, however, that admitting Turkey to the E.U. would improve the lot of its small Christian minority.

Of the three countries only Turkey is a candidate for E.U. membership, having submitted its application in 1999.

As work on the future European constitution advances the Vatican has been placing heavy emphasis on the E.U.'s Christian roots. It has had some success in that the draft agrees that the status given by national legislations to churches and religious associations and relations with them should be respected.

"I hope all that will be confirmed in the final version," Tauran said.

But the Roman Catholic Church is less happy with the preamble, where it wants to see reference to "religious, and specially Christian, heritage" in the basic text.