(ANSA) - TRIESTE - A new research, based on documents related to the fall of the Srebrenica enclave, declassified diplomatic cablograms, exclusive interviews and texts-records of interrogations and depositions given to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), shows that western countries would have a huge responsibility in the deadliest massacre ever happened in Europe since 1945.

These revelations, based on the documents collected during a 15-year research by Florence Hartmann, former correspondent for Le Monde and former spokesman for the ICTY, was published by the Observer, the Sunday edition of the Guardian.

According to an article published yesterday (a preview), on the website of the British newspaper, ''now a survey of the mass of evidence reveals that the fall of Srebrenica, 20 years ago formed part of a policy by the three ''great powers'' - Britain, France and the US - and by the UN leadership, in pursuit of peace at any price'', and not an unexpected and shocking event, as we have thought for a long time. ''Peace at the terrible expense of Srebrenica, which gathered critical mass from 1994 onwards, and reached its bloody denouement in July 1995'', with the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males, committed by Bosnian Serb soldiers commanded by Ratko Mladic.

According to this new research, English, French and American governments agreed that Srebrenica and another two 'safe areas' protected by the UN would be 'indefensible' long before Mladic was about to enter the enclave.

And they were even willing ''to abandon Srebrenica to its fate in exchange for a map'' of the Bosnian territories that would be divided, in order to achieve a peace that could be ''accepted by the former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic''. These documents would make clear - and this sounds like a damning indictment - that the Western powers were aware of the so-called 'Directive 7', which demanded ''the permanent removal'' of Bosnian Muslims from the 'safe area' and even of the words spoken by Mladic at the Bosnian Serb assembly (''my concern is to have them (the Muslims) vanish completely'') and those spoken by Radovan Karadzic, the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who promised ''blood up to their knees'' as soon as his army conquered Srebrenica.(ANSA).