Ammon News - WASHINGTON (AFP) — Tough economic reforms biting hard in Jordan, which have pushed up fuel prices and triggered protests, are "a necessary pain" to meet the nation's challenges, a top US official said Friday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is traveling in Asia, spoke this week with Jordan's King Abdullah and "commended the Jordanian government's efforts to address their economic challenges, and the king's commitment to reform," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"Jordan's economic challenges are substantial. Economic reform is necessary. There is always some pain that comes with these things, but it's a necessary pain this case."

Thousands of protesters made unprecedented calls on Friday for the king to go, as police blocked them from heading to the royal palace to vent their anger over big fuel price increases.

Publicly insulting the king or calling for his overthrow is punishable by imprisonment in Jordan, so the slogans are a major departure for a kingdom that had been spared protests on the scale of those seen in Arab Spring nations.

Nuland refused to draw parallels between the situation in Jordan, a US regional ally, and the unrest last year in countries like Tunisia and Egypt.

It was the International Monetary Fund that said that Jordanian government subsidies were "not sustainable for a modern economy," Nuland said.

"In the case of Tunis, you had a population that was massively frustrated with the lack of reform and the lack of attention to the people's needs," she told reporters.

"In the case of Jordan, you have a government that is wrestling with reform, trying to meet obligations for reform both to their own people and to the IMF."

On Thursday Nuland's deputy Mark Toner acknowledged "a thirst for change" in Jordan, adding that the Jordanian people had "economic, political concerns" as well as "aspirations."

The unrest erupted late Tuesday in response to a 53 percent increase in the price of household gas and a 12 percent rise in the price of gasoline.