Sir Peter Westmacott, KCMG, LVO, was born in the village of Edington, Somerset in the South West of England in December 1950. He was educated at New College Oxford and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1972.

After a year in Middle East Department, and Persian language training, he was posted to Tehran in 1974. In 1978 he was loaned to the European Commission in Brussels, before being posted to Paris from 1980 to 1984.

After 3 years as Chief of Staff to successive Ministers of State in London, he went to Ankara in 1987, for the first of his two diplomatic postings to Turkey.

From 1990 to 1993, he was Deputy Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales.

From 1993 to 1997, Peter was Counsellor for Political and Public Affairs in Washington, before returning to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as Director, Americas.

He joined the Board of the FCO in 2000 as Deputy Under Secretary and returned to Ankara as Ambassador in 2002.

Peter married Susie Nemazee in 2001. Between them they have four grown up children, Oliver, Laura, Rupert and Safieh.