UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United States tested North Koreas willingness to negotiate giving up its nuclear arsenal on Thursday in talks that a top North Korean official said had been constructive. The atmosphere was good, the meeting was constructive and interesting. We exchanged views on general issues, North Koreas first vice foreign minister Kim Kye-Gwan said during a break on the first day of the talks in New York. Kim negotiated with the US special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, at the US mission to the United Nations in what Washington has insisted are just exploratory talks. The United States has stressed that it wants to see if the Pyongyang regime is serious about living up to past commitments on its nuclear weapons. The United States considers progress on disarmament to be key to any hopes of improving six decades of hostile US-North Korea ties. The invitation to New York was made after a meeting between the nuclear envoys from North and South Korea at an Asian security forum in Bali, Indonesia last week. The international community is anxious to see North Korea return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, which broke down in late 2008. North Korea agreed in principle in 2005 to scrap its weapons program, but staged nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The Norths disclosure in November that it had a uranium enrichment plant, adding a new means to produce atomic weapons, has become a new complicating factor in the talks the North has held with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.