South Korea’s top court on Tuesday stirred decades-old resentments that threaten to inflame relations with Japan, ordering a leading Japanese steel maker to compensate Korean men forced to work as slave laborers during World War II.

The ruling, which the Japanese government quickly denounced, laid bare the resilient bitterness over Imperial Japan’s occupation of Asian neighbors even 73 years after the surrender to allied powers.

Despite postwar agreements that — in Japan’s view at least — settled claims for damages sought by the country’s former colonial conquests, debate over compensation and reparations has not subsided.