Tokyo's Nikkei index flat by break

Tokyo's benchmark index edged up Wednesday morning following losses in US and European markets while the yen was slightly higher owing to concerns over Greece's debt talks.

The Nikkei 225 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange added 7.53 points to 19,632.37 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares fell 0.34 percent, or 5.48 points, to 1,596.79.

"Uncertainties abroad will continue to weigh on the market," Hiroichi Nishi, an equities manager at SMBC Nikko Securities, told Bloomberg News.

Relief over Athens paying 750 million euros owed to the International Monetary Fund has been tempered by Greece's admission that it tapped an emergency account to pay off the debt.

Billions more in loan repayments are due over the next three months, and Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned that his country risked running out of cash within two weeks if no deal was reached with its creditors to unlock the last tranche of aid funds.

Greece won some support in the latest round of debt talks as it battles to keep itself solvent, but eurozone finance ministers have demanded more key reforms before they agree to release the final 7.2-billion-euro tranche of its EU-IMF bailout.

"The news that Greece has borrowed from its IMF account, to pay its IMF obligations, has increased the concerns over the smoke and mirrors being used and raises worries about their ability to pay," Capital Economics said in a commentary.

"The account they used must be repaid within the month. So the payment... wasn't the relief to markets that it should have been", it added.

In Tokyo, the stronger yen -- a negative for exporters -- also took some air out of the market with the dollar at 119.81 yen from 119.90 yen in New York.

Toyota shares were down 1.21 percent to 8,184.0 yen, Sony fell 0.46 percent to 3,815.5 yen, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group fell 2.96 percent to 5,240.0 yen ahead of its fiscal-year earnings results due later in the day.

Nissan, which also reports Wednesday, was down 1.47 percent to 1,240.0 yen.

Toshiba bounced back 4.49 percent to 418.7 yen, recovering some ground after the stock was hammered in the wake of news late Friday that the conglomerate had uncovered accounting problems on a number of infrastructure projects.

In New York, the Dow slipped 0.20 percent, the S&P 500 lost 0.29 percent while the Nasdaq fell 0.35 percent.

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