TOKYO — Japan and the United States agreed Tuesday to review a contentious aspect of their military alliance that grants special legal protections to American civilians employed by the US armed forces in the country.

The preliminary deal, announced by the US ambassador, Caroline Kennedy, and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, follows a bout of public outrage over crimes linked to US military personnel and contractors. It appeared intended to quell rising anger especially on the island of Okinawa, where half the roughly 50,000 US military personnel in Japan are based, along with thousands of civilian workers.

In May, a US Marine veteranworking as a civilian contractor on the island was arrested in connection with the killing of a 20-year-old Okinawan woman, leading to the largest protests against the US presence in two decades. Last week, prosecutors formally charged the contractor, Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, with the woman’s rape and murder.

Some Okinawans have complained for decades about what they see as unfairly generous legal protections enjoyed by Americans. Under an agreement governing the treatment of US military personnel in Japan signed in 1960, US soldiers, sailors, and civilian contractors suspected of committing crimes in Japan can sometimes be tried by US military courts.

New York Times