YEREVAN, August 29. /ARKA/. Asian equities were mostly higher on Thursday as sentiment improved following a positive handover from Wall Street but ongoing tensions in the Middle East limited gains.

Japan's Nikkei crossed the 13,400 mark, South Korea's Kospi jumped to a seven-day high and Australia's S&P ASX 200 ended flat. But the Shanghai Composite bucked the trend to dip 0.2 percent.

"It has been a fairly quiet session in Asian trade, as investors remain on headline watch despite a somewhat calmer situation on the Syria front. Some reports downgraded the threat of a strike from imminent to measured and this relieved equities from some of the pressure they've been under since the Syria threat escalated," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in a note. –0--