ABU DHABI, July 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the United States remained firmly committed to a strong dollar and that he was reassured during a Gulf visit that the dollar would remain the region's principal reserve currency.

"It is the policy of the United States and it will remain the policy of the United States to remain committed to a strong dollar," he said in an interview with Al Arabiya television on Wednesday.

Geithner, who visited Saudi on Tuesday and was in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, said the view he had heard in the region was that the dollar "will remain the principal reserve currency."

Five of the six Arab states that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman -- peg their currencies to the dollar. The sixth, Kuwait, uses a basket heavily weighted in dollars.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville, editing by Thomas Atkins)