Nuda Cûdî was there during the operation the Turkish army launched on August 24, 2016 and spoke to the ANF about the resistance created by the guerrilla war in Zap.

"THEIR PSYCHOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE WERE SCATTERED"

Cûdî said:

“Fighters find out their true character in battles. We as the PKK guerrilla are aware of the role and mission we have. Kurdistan’s freedom fighters fought with the awareness of their duty and the faith to prevail in the Ertuş Fortress. The Turkish army fought with the most advanced technology in weapons and thought they would prevail, but they failed to account for the Apoist militants’ great resistance in the Zap mountains. They ignored courageous young people who are set on freedom to the death and who resist in the trenches with noble comradery. As the resistance continued, they pushed forth all their technical prowess. In the first days, they could not fight on the ground. They had unlimited trust in their scout planes and jet fighters in the air and their heavy weapons. But we never gave up the resistance as a force ready to fight in our positions.”

Cûdî said she wasn’t in the Ertuş Fortress during the first days of fighting and that she was in the positions in Cilo Minor. She continued: “As the days passed, we understood that the operation was very extensive. I went to Ertuş shortly after. The enemy was hitting the Ertuş Fortress and the hills our friends were on hard. UAVs were flying over us constantly. As the enemy attacked, we fought. The enemy saw we were fighting back, and they retreated from some hills they wanted to keep holding. Despite all their technique, the psychology of the Turkish soldiers was upset in the face of the guerrilla forces.”

“THE RESISTANCE OF MERVAN’S AND ÇİÇEK’S FRIGHTENED THEM”

Cûdî said they didn’t stop resisting even for a day during the fighting without equal conditions and added:

“We never lost hope. Mervan’s and Çiçek’s not leaving their positions and resisting frightened them a lot in the first days. Çiçek and dozens of our young comrades never considered defeat for a second, with the great wrath they had for the enemy. The strength that gave them the courage to march on towards the enemy was the belief that victory was inevitable. The great love they had for their country and their people gave them the courage to fight in the Ertuş Fortress. Comrades Çiçek and Mervan said ‘We will fight until the last drop of our blood for this country and we won’t give up’ and their fight shook the enemy and sent them into a panic. They had determined the first target as the Ertuş Fortress, so they hit it hard. First they hit with jets, then they dispatched soldiers with Sikorsky’s. It wasn’t just the Turkish soldiers who fought on the hill. It was ISIS itself. They disguised ISIS fighters as soldiers and made them fight in the fortress. Despite all this, our small group of comrades in the fortress responded with resistance at all times. Against thousands of soldiers, a small guerrilla unit inflicted hundreds of casualties on the Turkish army in the Ertuş Fortress. The comrades fought until the last minute. Letting the fortress go would mean surrendering for us. That is why our heroic comrades fought until their last breath and fell martyr. We were not fighting the Turkish soldiers in the Zap operation, we were fighting the technology they owned.”

“THEY MADE ISIS MEMBERS FIGHT”

Cûdî pointed out that ISIS gangs were used in the Zap operation and, stating that the soldiers’ psychology was rattled due to intensifying clashes and new soldiers were pushed forth to fight constantly, added:

“As the resistance grew, the soldiers grew afraid. Fighting against the guerrilla forces in the Kurdistan mountains took a huge toll on the soldiers of the army. That is why the soldiers in the operation were switched frequently. As they saw that the soldiers were not strong enough to fight the guerrilla and they grew weary fast, they needed to switch soldiers frequently. As I said before, the newcomers were mostly either ISIS members or specially trained soldiers. But even so, they didn’t have the strength to resist us. Top ranking commanders were constantly trying to give them morale and boost their motivation but it wasn’t enough to give soldiers courage against our strength. The commanders who came to give morale were also experiencing a great defeat.”

“COMRADERY PREVAILED”

Nuda Cûdî concluded with the following:

“The Turkish army may have entered Ertuş Fortress, but they also know that the fortress is not a basic place. They know that the guerrilla won’t ever leave them alone there. The operation continued constantly. Our friends were active there from the first moment on, to date. Today, the enemy suffered great defeats in the Ş. Nalin Muş and Ş. Bedran Gundik Remo revolutionary initiatives. The Turkish army thought they could easily enter the Zap mountains, but they were met with the guerrilla’s effective initiative. All friends in this initiative fought with the spirit of the comrades who became legends in Zap. The Turkish army’s defeat in the initiative launched by the guerrilla in the Zap mountains is because the HPG and YJA-Star guerrillas fought with the spirit of comrades who resisted heroically and sacrificed their lives.”