朴槿惠执政以来，对朝鲜政策进行了重大调整，实行了既不同于代表进步势力的金大中、卢武铉政府的对朝“包容”政策，也不同于代表保守势力的李明博政府的对朝“强硬”政策，而实行了充分体现朴槿惠外柔内强的性格特点的对朝“第三条道路”政策，即在通过强化韩美同盟来保持对朝“强大威慑力”的同时，不关闭“和平谈判的大门”的刚柔并济的政策。“第三条道路”虽然在朴槿惠上台初期对缓和韩朝关系起了一定的积极作用，但从两年多来的韩朝关系发展来看，受到了美国推进“亚太再平衡战略”、朝鲜“核武与经济并进战略”、韩国保守主义运动以及朴槿惠个人的局限等因素的制约，韩朝关系并没有产生实质性改变。伴随韩美联合演习的持续进行、六方会谈重启的不确定性，“第三条道路”越来越陷入“困境”。如何探求韩国对朝政策“第三条道路”的出路，日益成为朴槿惠政府所面临的重大转折性课题。
Since taking office，Park Geun-hye has made a significant adjustment on policy to North Korea. Different from both Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy，Roh Mu-hyun’s Blood Infusion Policy and the tough policy by Lee Myung-bak，who was wild about pragmatism，she chose a third way toward North Korea，which can fully reflected her characteristic with an iron hand in a velvet glove. The content of the policy is that South Korea will not close the gate of peace negotiation while strengthening the alliance with the United States to keep the powerful deterrent to North Korea. Although the policy relaxed the relations on the peninsula at the beginning，there was no substantial improvement based on two previous years practice，because of the rebalancing strategy in Asian-Pacific region operated by USA，concurrent strategy in nuclear weapon and economy by North Korea and personal limitation of Park Geun-hye. Along with the proceeding of south Korea-US joint drill and the indetermination of restarting the Six-party talks，this way went into trouble day by day. So how to find the solution of the third way became a turning point for Park Geun-hye government in 2015.
