TOKYO. June 22: Anxiety over the North Korea standoff spooked financial markets, pushing the yen down against the dollar on a rumour — later denied — that a US military plane had crashed in the North.

Spokesmen for US forces in Japan and South Korea as well as for the South Korean and Japanese military said they had not heard of any plane crash.

The rumour emerged after Pyongyang’s KCNA news agency warned that chances of an aerial conflict with the United States had grown because of US spy flights over North Korea.

“The US imperialist warmongers have been intensifying military provocations against the DPRK (North Korea) of late,” KCNA said in a report.

“The ceaseless illegal intrusion of the planes has created a grave danger of military conflict in the air above the region.”—Reuters