Italy’s defense minister on Friday dismissed opposition criticism over the country’s deployment of troops and military assets to the Gulf, arguing that the mission’s framework had been fully disclosed to parliament.

According to the defense ministry’s website, around 400 Italian Air Force personnel have been deployed to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain since March.

The deployment includes four Eurofighter jets assigned to support airspace defense operations, though the ministry has not released detailed information about their activities.

Members of the center-left Democratic Party accused the government of bypassing parliament’s approval, arguing that Saudi Arabia falls outside the scope of an existing mandate for overseas military missions.

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, rejected the accusations, saying the mission’s “legal and operational framework” had been presented “with the utmost transparency.”

“The information was already public and available. In fact, it took only a journalist consulting the Defence Ministry’s website to accurately reconstruct what some opposition representatives claim not to know,” he said in a statement.

The extent of Italy’s military presence in the Gulf was further highlighted this week by Italian newspaper Il Giornale, which reported that as many as 700 soldiers had been deployed to the region.