TOKYO—Japan has protested a South Korean court order that assets seized from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries be sold off to pay compensation to two women subjected to forced labor for the company during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula. A support group for the South Korean forced labor victims welcomed the court decision as a “step forward” on compensation, but top Japanese officials warned of serious impacts to already strained diplomatic ties. Japan’s foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, said on Tuesday, the ruling a day earlier Japan warns of ‘serious’ impact after South Korean forced labor verdict by the Daejeon District Court in South Korea was a “clear violation of international law”. “We must avoid serious impacts on Japan-South Korea relations,” Motegi said, describing the court’s decision as “truly regrettable” during a regular news conference in Tokyo. Motegi said Japan called upon the vice consul at the South Korean embassy in Tokyo …