Near-threshold production of a0(980) mesons in the reaction pp ->d K^+ \bar{K}^0

. Using an effective Lagrangian approach as well as the Quark-Gluon Strings Model we analyze near-threshold production of a 0 (980) -mesons in the reaction NN → dK ¯ K as well as the background of non-resonant K ¯ K -pair production. We argue that the reaction pp → dK + ¯ K 0 at an energy release Q ≤ 100 MeV is dominated by the intermediate production of the a 0 (980) -resonance. At larger energies the non-resonant K + ¯ K 0 -pair production — where the kaons are produced in a relative P -wave — becomes important. The effects of final-state interactions are evaluated in a unitarized scattering-length approach and found to be in the order of a 20% suppression close to threshold. Thus in present experiments at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-J¨ulich for Q ≤ 107 MeV the a +0 signal can reliably be separated from the non-resonant K + ¯ K 0 background.