Jess L. Baily

Jess L. Baily, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara

Jess Baily assumed his duties as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara in July 2011.  Most recently, he served in the State Department as Director of the Office of Southern European Affairs where he managed bilateral relations with Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.  This is his second assignment to Ankara, where he served as Cultural Affairs Officer and later as Embassy Spokesman from 1998 to 2002.

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, Mr. Baily joined the Foreign Service in 1985 and has served in public affairs positions in Bangladesh, Senegal, Thailand, and the Netherlands.  From 2007 to 2008, he was in Erbil, Iraq as the senior U.S. government civilian representative in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.  In Washington, he directed the State Department’s Foreign Press Center from 2005-2007 and coordinated U.S. policy on political issues before the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly as Director of the Office of UN Political Affairs from 2008 to 2010.

A native of Cincinnati, Mr. Baily has BA from Yale University and MA in European History from Columbia University.  He speaks French, Turkish and Thai.  He is married and has one son.