The situation in Sudan's Darfur region is "basically stable", a Chinese special envoy who has just returned from a Sudan tour said on Wednesday.

He urged the international community to also make on-the-spot investigations of the situation there.

Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun returned to Beijing Tuesday from a four-day visit to Sudan, in which he met with Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir and some other officials, visited the Darfur region and three refugee camps, and talked with refugees, local officials and representatives of various circles.

"With regard to what I saw, my general impression was that the situation in the region is basically stable," he said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Zhai said the local governments were running well, refugee camps were in orderly conditions, sanitation was good and international aid organizations played effective roles.

Major problems at present were the big number of refugees and sporadic armed conflicts, he said.

Responding to remarks that the situation in Darfur was deteriorating, Zhai said the situation is in fact improving and urged on-the-spot investigation of the situation there.

"As to whether the situation is improving or worsening, I have been to Darfur, and you all can also go there and see," said Zhai.

Zhai said the Sudanese side told him that Sudan has agreed in principle to the three-phase proposal put forward by former U.N chief Kofi Annan to deploy peacekeeping force in Darfur but still had reservations on some details of the Annan plan.

He said Sudan hopes the commander of the African Union-UN peace-keeping forces should be an African and scale of the mixed forces should be decided by the battleground commander in accordance with actual situation.

The Sudanese side urged the international community to take Sudan's rightful concerns into consideration and conduct dialogues and consultations with Sudan on an equal footing to resolve the Darfur issue, he said.