NEW DELHI: It is going to be all official. A spy-for-spy deal with the United States is on anvil. All that remains is a formal decision by the Cabinet Committee on Security in January as Calcutta-based "The Telegraph" reported on Saturday that the Vajpayee Government has agreed "in principle" to let the Federal Bureau of Investigation post its two special agents in the US embassy in Delhi.

The deal is to pool intelligence on terrorism. It were the tapes of Pakistan's military ruler Gen. Pervez Mussarraf talking to his commander from China at the onset of the Kargil conflict that the FBI passed on to India that convinced the Vajpayee Government that the United States was really serious about crushing down the across-the-border terrorism.

The FBI wanted to run a full-fledged office in Delhi, in tandem with the US intelligence agency CIA, to beat the Islamic terrorism. The request was rejected earlier this year, but the new deal is to let both India and the United States have two intelligence men in their respective embassies in Washington and Delhi.

"The Telegraph" says the bilateral arrangement is being finalised because of the threats of dreaded Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan, the lengthening shadow of Islamic terrorism over South and Central Asia and the Kargil war that acted as a catalyst.

RAW (Research and Analysis Wing of the Cabinet Secretariat) that conducts the external intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau have been sounded to suggest the names of the officers to be stationed in the Indian embassy in Washington to work in tandem with the FBI to deal with terrorism and international crime.

It is an open secret that RAW and CIA maintain informal "laison" and both the countries post their intelligence men in their embassies in the respective capitals to provide them diplomatic immunity. It will, however, be for the first time that the relationship is being legitimatised the Indian operatives working out from the embassy in Washington would be "declared agents" and not undercover agents who go around in the garb of being diplomats.

Back in 1996, a furore was raised when an IB additional director, Rattan Sehgal, was caught while holding clandestine meeting with the CIA station chief in Delhi and two other operatives from the US embassy only to pursue his task as incharge of counter-intelligence. The controversy, however, prompted then Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda to order an exercise for formalising the relationship that the Indian agencies have with FBI and CIA. END