A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a resolution condemning North Korea's long-range rocket launch and its restart of plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, congressional records showed Tuesday.

Rep. Brad Ashford (D-NE) introduced the concurrent resolution (H.CON.RES.116) on Friday, when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a North Korea sanctions bill in a demonstration of bipartisan support for a tough response to Pyongyang's provocations.

The proposed resolution noted the North's four nuclear tests, carried out in 2006, 2009, 2013 and last month, as well as its successful rocket launches conducted in late 2012 and earlier this month, and pointed to a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning such tests.

The resolution says Congress condemns the latest rocket launch and its restart of a plutonium reactor.

The resolution appears to be referring to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's assessment last week that the North has restarted the five-megawatt nuclear reactor and has run it long enough to harvest plutonium from its spent fuel.

The resolution is seen as reflecting growing concern in Congress about a nation that is believed to have made strides in decades of efforts to develop nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S (Yohnap)